


Can't Buy Me Love

by BeneficialAddiction



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Mob, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Clint Brewer is a good dad, David Rose Being a Good Brother, David Rose Deserves Nice Things, Forced Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, Irish street gangs, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Miscommunication, Slow Burn, There’s Only One Bed!, the downfall of the Rose dynasty, turned Canadian mafia kings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27455368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneficialAddiction/pseuds/BeneficialAddiction
Summary: The Brewers are an old Irish Mafia family, known to be cold, calculating businessmen. Patrick is the numbers guy, diligent and methodical, so he knows what the loss of the Rose video empire means, not only for them but for his own family.  The monetary loss isn't a concern for people like the Brewers, but the loss of face absolutely is.Unfortunately, Patrick can’t throw stones.His parents have been touting his upcoming marriage for months, inviting all the most important people, but now he’s gone and broken it off with Rachel for reasons not even he understands.When the Roses offer a marriage of convenience in exchange for their debt being eliminated, it's an offer Clint "Carbon" Brewer can't refuse.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 175
Kudos: 228





	1. Chapter 1

It’s strange how things get twisted when you’re not paying attention. 

Build your whole life up on things that are wrong and suddenly what’s right just... doesn’t work anymore. 

As Patrick Brewer slowly buttons his crisp, white dress shirt he muses over the brief span of his life, the expectations that have always been the foundation of his future. 

As the only son and future Right Hand of Clint “Carbon” Brewer and the future heir to _all_ the Brewer Family, his life had been laid out before him from birth. A prince of one of the most prominent Boston street gangs, Clint and his new bride had been sent to Canada shortly after marriage to expand their control within the North American syndicates, and by the time their first child had been born a few years later, had more than established their name and Irish bloodline in the Great White North. Patrick and his sister Shauna are brought up under the old ways and the old traditions despite their new homeland, and are taught their heritage _and_ their legacy almost before they can walk. 

_‘You are meant for terrible and wonderful things,’_ his mother always says, and even as a child, Patrick believes her. Marcy Brewer had done her best to give her children as normal a life as possible, but he and Shauna had both realized very early on that they were different, that their _family_ was different. Other kids didn’t have any number of ‘uncles’ who were always lingering in their peripheral vision with arms crossed and sunglasses firmly on, didn’t have dark, sleek cars to whisk them away from wherever they’ve been. Other kids went to each other’s houses even though no one ever came to the Brewer’s, and were allowed to ride their bikes through the streets without supervision. 

They learn fast. 

At the age of fourteen he joins junior-varsity baseball, and is prouder of making Captain and taking control of the team than he is of any homerun or double-play he makes. 

Shauna takes over the Cheer Squad and Color Guard two years later. 

At sixteen he starts dating Rachel O’Neil, a pretty Irish girl who latches on to him with a loyalty he hasn’t earned – a girl with a nowhere-nobody background and no connection to any family or any organization that could be accused of receiving favoritism. 

Shauna finds a nice Irish-Catholic boy named Finn that same year who she’s got wrapped around her finger within days. 

At nineteen he enters a prestigious business school and passes his courses with ease because he’s already learned more studying his father’s books than he will any university’s. 

Shauna learns more subtle forms of manipulation at their mother’s knee, and gets early acceptance into a top law program by the time she’s a junior in high school. 

Expectations. 

Slipping into his jacket, Patrick fixes the diamond-stud cufflinks that had been Clint’s, and his grandfather’s before that. They’ve always been meant for him on his wedding day, and then for his son in the future. He’d never questioned that he would get married and have children, that he would one day sit on his father’s throne – he's been practicing for it since he was old enough to understand his place in the world. He also never thought it would happen this way. 

Prepared, ready, all the right things in the right order as his parents planned him a wedding, inviting all the right people, and Patrick had found that he’d never felt more wrong. The suspicion of it had been creeping up on him for a while and that’s probably the worst of it, the biggest source of guilt, because he could have called it off sooner, _should_ have called it off sooner than he did. As it was the invitations had already gone out long before he’d finally broken it off with Rachel, walking away from a relationship a dozen years in the making when he simply couldn’t bear it anymore. 

In the end all it took was Rachel suggesting that she go off her birth control in time for the honeymoon for him to detonate, to implode his entire world. 

After what he later learned was a pretty severe panic attack inside a locked bathroom, Patrick had re-emerged cold and composed, given her some bullshit story about why he couldn’t marry her that doesn’t explain anything at all – _it's business Rachel, you know that_ – and sent her back home broken-hearted and clueless about who he really was. 

To be fair, he hadn’t been sure himself at the time. 

Still isn’t. 

Turning up his collar, he watches his own hands in the mirror as he quickly and deftly knots his tie into a full Windsor, sleek black silk that – shockingly – feels less like a noose around his neck than the ring on Rachel’s finger had. He feels horribly about breaking off the engagement the way he had, probably always will, but the relief that had come with it had been enough to nearly buckle his knees and far overpowers the wrenching guilt that lives in the center of his chest. 

He’s never seen his father look so disappointed in him. 

From there everything had been a blur, the whole of the last three weeks as his parents scrambled to salvage what they could of the debacle. It would be a horrendous display of weakness, of instability for the son of Clint Brewer to call off a wedding, putting their relationships with their friends, their patrons, all the other families into jeopardy. Patrick had flushed cold at the shock of fear that had crossed his father’s face when he’d confessed to what he’d done, refusing to marry the girl he’d been best friends with for years. That fear had been quickly hidden as both his parents immediately went into damage-control mode, prodding far more gently than he probably deserved for an answer. When he couldn’t give them one they’d tried their best to reassure him that it was just cold feet, just nerves, and only that massive, overwhelming sense of relief kept him standing strong in his conviction. 

He hadn’t thought he could feel worse but the way his father had squeezed his shoulder gently before disappearing into his study had been like a knife in his gut. 

His mother at least had been more consoling, though he’d had the same answers for her as he’d had for his father. 

_I don’t know._

_It’s not right._

_I can’t do it._

He doesn’t say he’s sorry. 

Not to Rachel, not to his parents, and certainly not to himself. 

He’s already shown himself to be unreliable, foolish even – he can’t further damn himself by apologizing for it too. 

Fully dressed in his three-piece Brioni, a black that gleams midnight blue in the right light, he breathes a heavy sigh and turns to face himself in the mirror, straightening his shoulders and putting on his blankest expression. 

He’s not a monster... just a businessman. 

He has to remind himself of that, just to keep himself from collapsing. 

He _wants_ to apologize, of course he does, and he hopes that one day, when the time is right, he can fall to his knees and beg for absolution, but today he can’t. 

Today he’ll stand tall and do what needs to be done, mitigating the damage as best he can for everyone involved along the way. 

Today he’ll be Patrick Brewer, son of Clint and Marcy Brewer, a cold, calculating numbers-man who runs the risk on every decision he’s ever made. 

He huffs a bitter laugh - funny how a loveless marriage to someone he doesn’t care about seems a lot less risky than a loveless marriage to someone he does.

**XXX**

When David chooses to wear a skirt for his wedding, it’s more a desperate joke for himself than anyone else. While he knows that his intended is man, he also knows that that man believes himself to be marrying a woman, so it was either the skirt or a wedding gown and white simply isn’t his color. He considers lace lingerie but he’s well-aware that the Rose family is already pushing its luck, so he’d slipped into his favorite pair of black Tom Fords instead.

He’s dead inside and nearly hysterical with discomfort. 

The pleated skirt doesn’t bother him, nor do the socks he pulls up over his calves; first the left, white stripes near the top, then the right, solid black. The two-piece Thom Brown was a recent acquisition, brand new and straight from the designer instead of the second-hand eBay finds he’s had to scrounge through over the last two years, and it’s been tailored to fit him like a glove. 

No, the suit is perfect, black and lovely - it’s the wedding itself that bothers him. 

Getting married wasn’t something that David had ever really thought he’d get to have. He’d had a wedding book once, sure, a precursor to his penchant for mood boards, but he’d given up on the idea by the time he was seventeen and finally starting to understand that people only tended to put up with him for his family’s money. David Rose has always been a lot, so finding someone willing to stay with him, let alone marry him, having dreams of what that would look like, is something that he’d buried deep a long time ago. 

It only makes sense that his wedding is built on a lie. 

Sighing, David pulls on his combat boots and laces them up tight, all the way to the top. They’re a comfort to him today, since he feels like he’s heading to war, and he only hopes that that feeling, that preparation isn’t a sign of what’s to come. 

Despite his disbelief, today is a day nearly thirty years in the making. 

Getting to his feet again, David muses over how he’s ended up here, strangely comforted by the fact that, for once, he’s not to blame for his own circumstances. This one, he thinks, can be placed squarely at the feet of the infamous Johnny Rose, entrepreneur extraordinaire and disenfranchised patriarch of the recently ruined Rose Video dynasty. 

Three decades ago, his father had been young and ambitious but hardly the dominating force of the entertainment world that he would eventually become. Though he’d had the ingenuity and the work-ethic to build Rose Video up from nothing, he hadn’t had the money or the connections to get started. Some would say he made the sacrifices necessary to secure his funding, others would say he sold his soul when he approached the Brewer family for sponsorship. Hardly the same sort of violent 1920’s street gang they once were, the Brewers still had the reputation of an old-world mob family, and their favor had come at a price. 

Luckily for Johnny his business acumen really _was_ all it was cracked up to be, and Rose Video exploded into success. The original loan was paid off quickly and painlessly and they continued to receive support and patronage over the years without the expectation of further reciprocation. David and his sister Alexis were raised with silver spoons in their mouths, never wanting for anything, and the Roses lived their lives in luxury, never wanting for anything except perhaps real connection. 

David scoffs under his breath, slipping into his pressed white dress shirt. Of the four of them, he’s pretty sure he’s the only one that ever feels a pang of loneliness, that ever wants for something more... real. His father thrives on distanced, professional connections and his mother is happy as long as she has a fawning audience, something she’s somehow never lacked for. Alexis, well, he doesn’t think Alexis will ever settle down, no matter how much he might want her to. It’s just... not in her nature. 

Hence why he’s here now, making sure that his hair is swept into a high, perfect pompadour before tying on his bowtie and fastening his cuffs. 

If someone had asked him three years ago when everything started to go wrong if he thought he’d be here today, he would have laughed in their face. When online streaming had slowly started to creep onto the scene no one had thought it would take off the way it did, least of all Johnny Rose. That naivete was quickly resolved when the rise of Interflix rapidly began to mirror the downfall of Rose Video. In a panic Johnny had gone to the Brewers once again, and had been provided with additional funding based on his long-standing friendship with the family and history of past success. 

That past success did not prove to be a good prediction of the future. 

Rose Video had collapsed in on itself like a dying star, but never let it be said that Johnny Rose didn’t try to prepare for the worst. Some money _had_ been held back, saved for new endeavors should video and DVD rentals prove to eventually become obsolete, and in another world, another life it would have been enough. As it was, the family business-manager Eli had betrayed them at the worst possible moment, disappearing into the Caymans or the Swiss Alps or wherever the hell he’d gone, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars with him. As a result the Roses had been left stranded less than six months ago, their entire world turned upside down and nothing to their name. 

David thinks they might’ve been alright if not for the debt they owed the Brewers. Even now, as he slips on his jacket and smooths down his lapels, he doesn’t know exactly how much his father owes them, and really, it’s probably for the best. He doesn’t need to know how little he’s worth to his family, or how _much_ he’s worth to his future father-in-law, the rock that is Clint “Carbon” Brewer. 

“Not fair,” he mutters as he checks his reflection in the mirror, straightening the white slip of his pocket-square. 

No one had forced him to be here. 

No, they had only planned to guilt Alexis into it, and David couldn’t let that happen. 

David manages a trembly grin thinking about his little sister, so vibrant and beautiful and full of life. No doubt Clint Brewer had been thinking of her when he’d offered to erase Johnny’s debt in-full, in exchange for a marriage of convenience to his eldest - Patrick Brewer being almost as well-known as his father and heteronormativity being what it was - but that sort of thing would have destroyed Alexis and everyone knew it. Johnny might’ve declined the offer all together, ruin be damned, if David hadn’t found him first, hunched over his desk with his head in his hands. 

It might be the only time he’s ever done something selfless in his life. 

The churning in his gut suggests that it’s not something he should do again. 

He _would_ do it again, in a heartbeat for Alexis, of course he would. 

It’s just... the consent issue he sort of has a problem with. 

As he puts the final touches on his appearance – a dab of cologne, eyebrows smoothed into place – he reassures himself by way of the contract signed between the Brewer and Rose patriarchs. 

_Marriage of convenience, child, offspring..._ it was all carefully worded and of course would never actually hold up in court. There are clauses intentionally included to state that sex was not in any way expected or required, and a very deliberate absence of names or specificities. Nothing that says _daughter,_ or _Alexis,_ or even _youngest,_ and in the end it had been David who’d pointed that out, who had suggested the subterfuge and the swap between the Rose siblings. Johnny had tried to talk him out of it but only half-heartedly, and really, there was nothing else to be done. 

The Brewers didn’t take kindly to their money being lost or their investments falling apart. 

All for the best then, and not really a lie. The Brewers should have been more specific if they’d wanted a particular mail-order bride – he has to keep repeating that. He hates the idea that Patrick is being tricked into something, even if he doesn’t know the man, but in a way he’d agreed just as David had and he has to believe that everything is going to be ok. He can’t imagine what will happen if Clint Brewer refuses to allow the wedding to take place, and he thinks it might actually kill him to be left at the altar by his bought-and-paid-for groom. 

Embarrassing enough that he can’t convince one with love; how hideous would it be to be rejected even in this, a simple business transaction? 

The time for hesitating is up anyway – a heavy, piano version of the Wedding March has started outside the door of the room he’s been sequestered in, and it’s never sounded more like a funeral dirge.


	2. Chapter 2

Tradition dictates that the service itself is private. It’s not Catholic tradition, nor true Irish tradition, but rather tradition set forth by mob and mafia, meant to protect the women and children that make up the heart of the family. Patrick himself has always found the dichotomy between the family business and the family religion to be particularly hypocritical, but today he appreciates his humiliation being limited to immediate family. 

The church itself is beautiful. His parents have brought him and Shauna here for years, as often as they could for mass whenever they were in the States. He’d hoped that the high ceilings and open arches, the bright afternoon sunlight pouring in through the stained-glass windows would be enough to keep him from feeling stifled, trapped, and instead finds that he feels weightless, like he could float away. When his father had knocked on the door of his room and murmured quietly that it was time to start he’d seemed stunned that Patrick had managed a grin, but he’d been overcome by a wave of relief in that moment and had had nothing to fret over. 

In that moment he’d had no expectations to meet, not really. 

The most basic duties of any husband, simple and generic, are far less daunting than any specifics he would owe to a beloved friend. 

Lead by his father through a side door, he steps away from the pulpit to stand in front of his mom, to let her take his hands and to kiss her cheek, hoping that the smile he offers her is enough of a reassurance to ease her mind. Her eyes glitter and she seems as happy as any mother on her son’s wedding day, but Shauna stands beside her in her sleek, black cocktail dress and frowns. 

Patrick sends her a playfully scolding look but he can feel her eyes boring into his back as he turns away and walks back to the pulpit. 

Clint Brewer has joined his wife and daughter, the three of them seated just to Patrick’s left, and he thinks in that moment that his father finally looks coldly proud of him again. 

As a piano-heavy wedding march begins to play from the speakers tucked discretely into the eaves, Patrick is surprised to find that both Moira _and_ Johnny Rose are seated to the right of the aisle. He wonders if Alexis means to make the walk herself – what little he knows of the youngest living Rose family member suggests that she would do exactly that. Spunky, courageous – though some would say reckless – and somehow always managing to pull herself out of trouble at the very last minute, he very much doubts the independent socialite needs anyone to lead her anywhere. 

Which... is a comfort if he thinks about it too much. 

Still, doesn’t every little girl dream of a white wedding? 

Doesn’t every marriage-minded woman want to be walked down the aisle in a gorgeous dress by her father? 

Why is _Alexis_ doing this? 

For all of a second Patrick hates this, hates that he’s marrying someone who’s marrying _him_ for money - the phrase _gold-digger_ uncharitably crossing his mind – but he battles it back because he has his own less-than-honorable reasons here too, and anyway, the doors at the back of the church are swinging open. 

Patrick’s breath catches in his throat. 

Everyone has heard of the Rose kids. 

If they weren’t well-known through the Rose video empire then they were at least known through their own exploits – Alexis a globe-trotting debutante and former-reality star, her brother David famous among the New York elite as a taste-maker and gallerist who’d had a few unfortunate party days in his mid-twenties. Celebrity status aside, there had always been those connections that came with being a patron of the Brewer family, so it’s hardly the first time Patrick’s seen either of them, at least at a distance. 

It’s the first time he’s seen them like _this._

Alexis is beautiful, of course. She’s practically glowing in a long silk wedding gown, its deep v-cut and lack of sleeves showing off her sun-kissed tan and complimenting her curly honey-colored hair. She’s got a small bouquet in her hands and her chin is tipped down as she looks forward demurely, her arm hooked through the elbow, not of her father, but of her brother, David. 

_David Rose is absolutely stunning._

It’s a strange sensation Patrick experiences in that moment. 

Like being knocked off your feet, only to realize that _you_ had run into the _truck,_ not the other way around. 

He’s never quite understood those things that other people claim to feel - that punch of lust, the instinctive want that draws them to someone else - had certainly never felt it for Rachel. A part of him had felt broken every time he’d touched her, like there was some integral part of him that was missing for the lack of simmering arousal, and it had to be _him,_ not _her,_ because he’d never really felt it for anyone else either, male _or_ female. 

Now, standing there waiting as David Rose walks his sister, Patrick’s future bride toward him, his knees practically give out. 

He can’t take his eyes off him. 

Tall, broad-chested, with thick, dark hair styled in a high swoop and stubble just beginning to show, Patrick has never in his life had this kind of response to another person. 

And god help him if it’s not his future brother-in-law. 

Patrick never thought he’d have to fight down a laugh in the middle of his own wedding ceremony. 

Breathing out through his nose, he tries to center himself and make sure his face doesn’t look as stunned as he feels. Stupid, so _stupid_ to come to the realization now that maybe he... 

He’s thought it, or... _almost_ thought it anyway, wondered if maybe the reason he didn’t feel a spark, didn’t feel any heat when he looked at Rachel was because she was, well, a _she,_ but... 

But nothing had ever happened to him, _no one_ had ever happened to him that made him think, oh, yes, _that’s_ why. 

_That’s_ what you are. 

His mind and his heart are racing too fast for that to happen right now either; he hadn’t seen David Rose step through those doors and gone _‘yup, I’m definitely gay,’_ but he _had_ seen him step through those doors and thought _oh._

_Oh._

_Look at you._

And sadly, that’s more than he’s ever felt before. 

Swallowing hard, Patrick clasps his wrist with the opposite hand, squeezing hard enough to make his tendons twinge as he tries to compose himself. The music is slowly starting to fade away as David and Alexis arrive at the end of the aisle, and he watches as his bride-to-be turns to her brother and presses a kiss to his stubbled cheek before booping him gently on the nose. Patrick’s mouth twitches in an aborted smile even as he experiences a sudden bolt of jealousy, wondering that that must feel like against her lips. 

Squaring his shoulders, he turns fully toward his new bride, meets her eyes as she turns to smile at him, then she’s... um, winking, maybe? 

And leaves him standing there as she moves to join her family off to the side. 

Leaves him standing there dumbfounded, staring after her, leaves him standing there at the altar with David Rose.

**XXX**

David doesn’t really know Patrick Brewer.

Well, _obviously_ he doesn’t _know_ him - you never really _know_ your benefactors do you? - but what he means is that he really only knows _of_ him. 

The numbers guy, the only son, he’s seen him maybe a handful of times in different, business-y type settings, but that would have been at least six or seven years ago and he’d never really taken any note of the heir to the Brewer family and fortune. 

To be perfectly honest, the only reason he takes note of him _now_ is because he’s standing on the other end of a wedding aisle. 

Heart pounding in his chest, still off-balance from Alexis’ sudden, tearful, and brutally honest _I-love-you,_ the only reason he manages to walk in time to the music is because his sister is leading. 

Well, she’s good at it, and if the strained gratitude in her voice had been anything to go by, he can trust her to do this one last thing for him. 

He’d hate to trip and fall flat on his face in front of his future-husband. 

Speaking of future-husband... 

David’s breath stutters and he immediately drops his gaze to his boots before skittering it over to his parents, his sister, anything but the man who’s look him, lips parted, eyes absolutely screaming. 

_...What?_

David swallows hard, tries to corral his racing thoughts. 

There’s no reason for Patrick Brewer to be looking at him like that when he’s standing next to Alexis in a wedding gown. There’s no way he could _know,_ no way he could even _suspect_ the bait-and-switch they’re about to pull, and nothing he knows about Patrick – which admittedly isn’t a lot – gives him a reason to be looking at David that way. 

Like he’s beautiful. 

Alexis squeezes his elbow as they come to the end of the lovely velvet runner that’s been laid down, the end of the road as it were. A voice that sounds suspiciously like his mother’s sounds in his head, a ridiculous little metaphor and a half-formed reference to a yellow brick road, and David bites back a hysterical laugh. This is the part that could go wrong, the bit that could end in shouting and a literal hate crime, but Alexis is leaning up to kiss his cheek and boop him on the nose and he clamps down on her small hand in a desperate bid for her not to leave him, but she’s casting a wink in Patrick’s direction and leaving him regardless and he can’t breathe. 

He’s trembling as he turns toward his fate, and he can’t breathe. 

Patrick Brewer is staring at him in awe, his mouth just open, soft brown eyes bright and stunned, and for the briefest moment David thinks maybe he can hope. 

The he hears Clint “Carbon” Brewer, one of the most feared men in the circuit say his father’s name in a low, warning tone and all those hopes are dashed. 

“Johnny. What’s going on?” 

_Ohgodohgodohgod..._

He hears his dad deliver some smooth line in a voice that barely quavers, that befuddled tone he uses so often to his advantage - _nothing wrong here, whatever do you mean?_ \- but he can’t tear his eyes away from the man standing in front of him, the man whose eyes have narrowed just slightly, whose brow has furrowed as he tilts his head in confusion, in... 

“Actually it is,” he hears himself say, jumping into a conversation he wasn’t even following as Clint Brewer’s tone gets more calm, more level, more _deadly._ “A marriage for a debt.” 

He steels himself, turns, and meets that stern, cold countenance, the man everyone has heard of eyeing David up and down like he’s taking his measure, reading his very worth. Lifting his chin, dropping his shoulders, he tries to remind himself that this is a business transaction that he’s followed to the letter, not a tremendous disappointment he’s perpetrating on his soon-to-be father-in-law. 

“That was the agreement, was it not?” he asks, somehow managing to hold his cool gaze, to stand strong. “A marriage?” 

Clint Brewer’s jaw tics, preparing – David is sure – to deliver his death knell, but before him, Patrick Brewer laughs. 

It lights up his face, changes everything about him and _oh..._

_Oh, David makes note of him now._

He’s beautiful, in a sweet, boy-next-door kind of way, and he’s still looking at David like he’s something remarkable. 

“A marriage, not a bride,” he says slowly in a tone that David can’t read, and Clint Brewer is saying _his_ name now in that low, warning tone, but Patrick just hides a smile at the corners of his mouth and steps away from the pulpit, crossing to his father’s side, placing a placating hand on his forearm. 

David glances at his parents anxiously as the Brewers confer amongst themselves; his father cautious, Alexis clearly trying to fight down her panic, and his mother looking ridiculously serene. She catches David looking and pointedly rolls her eyes, casting him that half-sincere smile he’s never really been sure of in all his life. He thinks she must be trying to reassure him but he’s not sure how she thinks _that_ is... 

“...is just malicious compliance.” 

“And that’s an admirable tactic, yes,” Clint Brewer says, and _fuck,_ David should really be paying attention to the conversations going on around him right now. “But Patrick, you know this isn’t what we wanted for you.” 

_Oh._

David’s heart sinks as he glances over at Clint Brewer, at _Marcy Brewer,_ who are both looking at thier son with pity and disappointment. He’s used to getting those looks, of course he is, but he’d hoped that the fact that this was a marriage of convenience for them would at least mitigate the fallout. He’d hoped that this being a business transaction would mean they could only be satisfied with the outcome. He didn’t expect them to overjoyed, but he hadn’t thought content was aiming too high. 

Apparently he was wrong. 

“It’s just business dad,” Patrick says in a low, even tone like he doesn’t want David to hear. 

“Yes it is,” Clint Brewer agrees, “But Patrick, we’d hoped you could at least _try._ That you’d have a _chance_ to be happy.” 

“You don’t know that I won’t be,” Patrick argues quietly, and David drops his head back to stare at the ceiling to get the sudden, threatening tears under control. 

“Are you backing out of the agreement?” he asks, keeping his voice flat and cool before anything else can be said that will absolutely break him. 

“We can’t afford to,” he hears Patrick say, and the bastard sounds almost cheerful about it. 

David scowls, snapping his head around to glare, but his soon-to-be-groom isn’t looking at him. Instead, he claps his father on the shoulder, kisses his mother’s cheek, avoids the young woman David suspects is his sister entirely. Shauna Brewer, a pit viper if ever there was one, is staring at him with narrowed eyes, and he might feel targeted if the looks she was flicking her brother weren’t just as suspicious – but to be fair, none of what he’s getting from the Brewers right now is comforting. 

Clint Brewer looks like he’s plotting his next move on the chess board since this one didn’t go his way – his arms crossed and his face blank, Marcy Brewer looks like she’s devastated and just waiting for her husband to stop this whole thing – her face on the edge of crumpling, and Shauna Brewer, again, Shauna looks like she wants to break some bones, and maybe not only David’s. 

Patrick just looks serene. 

Well, serene with a slightly stunned, hysterical edge to it, which reminds David far too much of his mother for comfort. 

“Are we ready to proceed then?” the deacon asks quietly, a blonde-haired man with a French accent who looks far too young to be involved in anything so serious. He’s been standing silent in the background till now, when he looks past David and Patrick, between them to Clint Brewer, waiting for some sign that he should proceed, and the barest twitch of the man’s fingers where they rest against his elbow, arms still crossed, is apparently enough to seal David’s fate. 

His shoulders slump and he carefully breathes out, managing to hold back the massive, gusty sigh of relief he wants to choke up. He turns slightly toward the pulpit, feels Patrick settle in at his side again as the deacon opens his bible. His mind is still racing, he still hurts, but it’s worked and it’s happening and he’s saving his sister, saving his parents. 

That’s all that matters right? 

Too late if it's not. 

Less than ten minutes and a lifetime later, he’s legally married to Patrick Brewer.


	3. Chapter 3

_David._

_David, not Alexis._

_David standing in front of him; tall, dark, and handsome and so incredibly masculine, and Patrick can’t breathe._

_He doesn’t know why, doesn’t understand the things he’s feeling that he’s never felt before, but David Rose is standing in front of him with a deacon at the ready, and he’s meant to marry him._

_“Johnny. What’s going on?”_

_“Well, a marriage, Clint, isn’t that why we’re here?”_

_“This wasn’t what we agreed upon...”_

_“Actually it is.”_

_Patrick blinks as David straightens up and tears himself away from staring at him to turn and stare at his father instead._

_“A marriage for a debt,” he re-asserts, calm and confident. “That was the agreement, was it not? A marriage.”_

_Patrick’s sudden laugh is proud and delighted and only a little cracked._

_“A marriage, not a bride,” he says knowingly as understanding dawns._

_Oh god, has... has something finally gone right?_

_It feels like maybe it has, and that..._

_Patrick tries desperately not to grin, feeling slightly hysterical as he steps down from the pulpit and walks over to his parents to place a placating hand on his father’s forearm._

_If there’s one thing Clint “Carbon” Brewer hates, it’s having someone get one over on him._

_“Can we do this?” he asks, because while he has no doubt of his parents’ tolerance for others, he’s not so sure of their acceptance of him, nor that of their larger family._

_Even if this... isn’t really him... or..._

_“Patrick,” his father says, low and drawn out, a warning._

_“No, can we do this?” he insists, too sharp as he tries to focus on what needs to be done, tries to ignore the very personal panic rising up in his chest. “There were reasons we didn’t just call it off when I left Rachel – does this still work?”_

_“You don’t have to do this,” his father says, and Patrick’s stomach drops because five minutes ago, before it was David and they all still thought it was Alexis, he did. “They’ve broken the agreement...”_

_“They haven’t,” he interrupts._

_“It was understood!” his father snaps right back, his voice rising, even as Patrick’s mother grips his shoulder gently._

_“That’s on us,” Patrick points out. “We left that door open – this is just malicious compliance.”_

_Beautiful, clever malicious compliance._

_“And that’s admirable, yes,” his father agrees, because they both appreciate a worthy_ _opponent._ _“But Patrick, you know this isn’t what we wanted for you.”_

_Insides twisting tighter, Patrick clenches his jaw, sick to his core because he knows what they’d wanted, and had wanted it for himself too. Happiness though, happiness has been elusive, and he’s come to realize recently that he won’t find it in the things they want him to find it in._

_“This is just business dad,” he says quietly, because if they could all just believe that, buy into that, then maybe he can survive this._

_“Yes it is,” his father agrees. “But Patrick, we’d hoped you could at least try. That you’d have a chance to be happy.”_

_Something hot and angry flares in his chest and fuck, he knows that, he knows that! He knows that they’d hoped he could eventually fall in love with Alexis one day, that he might be happy with a beautiful wife and at that the two of them could build a life and a family together that they would be satisfied with, but he’d known in his heart that that wasn’t going to happen even if he hadn’t known why. Maybe they could have been civil, yes, but they never would have had what his parents really want for him._

_He’s only for the first time starting to wonder if it is possible_ _for_ _him._

_“You don’t know that I won’t be,” he murmurs._

_“Are you backing out of the agreement?” David calls as Patrick holds his father’s gaze, and he bites down a grin, a spark of relief, of excitement rushing through him because he has the perfect excuse to explore this._

_That’s probably wrong - he's being strangely and uncharacteristically cavalier - but what the hell._

_“We can’t afford to,” he replies, and god that sounds far too cheerful._

_Shauna shoots him a narrow-eyed look that makes his breath catch in his throat, so he avoids her gaze and claps his father on the shoulder instead, kisses his mum’s cheek and forces himself not to whistle cheerily on his way back to the altar._

_He thinks he’s lost his mind._

_It doesn’t matter – nothing he can do about it now._

_Ten minutes later he’s legally married to David Rose._

**XXX**

The ceremony is a blur, and if pressed later, he won’t remember any of it. 

He vaguely recalls saying “I do” when prompted – twice, since he’s distracted watching David say it first – and then the general feeling of tension sitting heavy on his shoulders despite the helium-light giddiness in the pit of his stomach, but outside of that there’s not much between the start and the pronouncement that he is now in possession of one shiny new husband. 

He doesn’t kiss him. 

He wants to - god does he want to, strangely enough - but he holds back because he’s nervous and he doesn’t understand the urge, and because David looks... well, kind of nervous too to be honest, and kind of hurt. That prods at something tender deep inside Patrick’s chest that he wants to pull out and soothe, but he’s got time now to figure this out, and he feels... 

He feels like he could cry for happiness. 

He reaches for his pocket before he stops himself. His grandmother’s Claddagh ring, which he’d meant to give to Alexis, hadn’t been sized for her given the circumstances, but it barely fits halfway down his own pinky so he’s certain it won’t fit David. His stomach dips as this thought flits across his mind, all mixed up with the knowledge that he’d never intended to give it to Rachel and doesn’t know why he’d wanted to give it to Alexis, and that now he’s disappointed not to be able to give it to David, and none of those things make sense but before he can get too into his own head about it David’s pulling one of four silver bands off his right hand and offering it to him, catching his eyes with an unreadable expression when Patrick accepts. 

It feels... monumentous, somehow, to slip it onto David’s left ring finger and leave it there, and yes, he _does_ want to kiss him, but David is already stepping away and moving toward his family, pulling his sister into his arms for a hug that seems too intense for what’s just happened, and it strikes him in the chest like a hammer. 

What... 

What does David _think_ of him, that he’s so glad to have saved her from him? 

Patrick knows the Brewer reputation, but surely David doesn’t think he would... 

He doesn’t know what David thinks. 

He doesn’t know _David._

His father steps forward, shakes Johnny Rose’s hand, but he’s still upset, visible only to his family who know him so well when he shuts down like this. The room is all commotion and movement, Moira Rose making some sort of grand speech and pulling her son against her chest, Patrick’s own mother coming forward to hug him and pet his hair and murmur how proud she is of him in his ear. The tension in the room is incredibly thick, and everyone seems disappointed somehow, and it quickly kills what little good feeling he’d been keeping in his chest. 

“The reception starts in thirty minutes,” his father says aloud, a prodding reminder to the rest of the room. “Patrick, we’ll all meet you there. Your car will be waiting out front in ten.” 

Clapping Patrick on the shoulder, he opens his arms and takes his wife and daughter under them, pointedly waiting for Johnny Rose to do the same and shepherding them out of the church. They go with clatter and clamor, all movement and noise, and the door closes on Shauna’s suspicious look being shot back at him over her shoulder, dropping them into a sudden and abrupt silence. 

_Bump-bum..._

_Bump-bum..._

_Bump-bum..._

His heart is beating out of his ears. 

Patrick swallows hard, tries to force down the pressure rising in his chest, to force his feet to move so that he can turn and face his... 

_His_ _husband._

David’s moved to lean against the edge of the pulpit, his ankles and his arms crossed as he tries to almost crumple in on himself. He’s all long, clean lines, strong and dark and sharp somehow despite the hesitant vulnerability on his face, and Patrick’s not sure if he wants to be cut by them or if he wants his own touch to soften... 

He swallows hard, clears his throat. 

He’s not normally like this, all... existentialism and poetry. 

He’s more practical than that. 

He can do this. 

“Um, hi,” he hears himself say, and his cheeks are immediately flooded with heat. 

_Hi?!?_

_“_ Hello,” David replies, eyeing him up and down, his tone cautious but curious. 

“Um, I’m Patrick.” 

David’s mouth quirks, does a little twist to the side like he’s trying to hide a grin, and he drops his head, just for a second before pushing himself up and stepping forward. 

“I know who you are,” he says. “David.” 

“Mm, sorry, never heard of you,” he says with a grin, and he immediately feels stupid for teasing but it’s how he is with Shauna, _who_ he is, and the spark that flickers across David’s face isn’t _entirely_ bad. 

“Right,” he says slowly, his eyes dark, “But you’ve heard of my sister.” 

Oh. 

A chill rolls up through Patrick’s stomach and he gets the distinct impression that it’s in his best interest to tread very lightly here. 

“Everyone’s heard of your sister,” he says slowly, attempting to shove his hands into his non-existent pockets, and David’s eyes narrow. 

“Maybe,” he argues, “But no one’s ever offered to buy her hand.” 

Patrick instinctively opens his mouth to fire back as indignation spikes in his chest, but what can he really say to that? He’s not wrong – that's exactly what Patrick’s done, even if it wasn’t what he’d meant to do, what he’d wanted to do. Taking a deep breath, he drops his shoulders and hangs his head, looks up at David through his lashes and waits. 

For his part David eyes him suspiciously but almost seems to respect him for the silence. 

“Anyway,” he says with a shrug, apparently ready to put it behind them, “I actually wanted to apologize.” 

Patrick’s head snaps up in shock, because that was the last thing he was expecting. 

“For what?” he asks, and he’s embarrassed by the breathy quality his own voice has taken on. 

“For the bait-and-switch,” David says with a shrug, like it doesn’t matter to him nearly as much as Patrick suspects it might. “I know I’m not... what you were expecting.” 

And well... 

He’s not. 

And that’s kind of amazing. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Patrick says dumbly as his eyes trail down the line of David’s body, his throat where he’s suddenly tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. He's so dark, so... _opposite_ of his sister in her wedding gown... “I never really did dream of a white wedding.” 

David’s head snaps forward again and the way his eyes shine, the sound he makes – a sobbing chuckle – is a one-two punch to the gut. 

“I did.” 

**XXX**

Oh god, it’s awful, it’s... 

Somehow he’d never really realized that eventually he’d be left entirely alone with Patrick Brewer, the numbers man, heir to the Brewer legacy, his _husband._

_How_ had he not realized that?! 

David swallows hard, tries to keep himself together as he brushes past him and makes his way out of the church. His own ring, so familiar and perfectly sized, sits heavy and awkward on his left ring finger, almost like he’s never worn it before, and it makes him feel off-balanced and anxious. There’s a long black limo idling at the bottom of the steps and he’s never been so grateful to slip into the enclosed anonymity of someone else’s vehicle, and for him that’s saying something. The screen is up so he has two seconds to breathe before the door is popped open again and Patrick slips in behind him, not nearly long enough, but he’s not quite willing to kill for the time just yet so it will have to be enough. 

Except... 

Except he doesn’t say anything. 

He just... sits, on the far side of the bench seat as far away from David as he can get, looking fixedly out the window and giving David all the space he needs to spiral into even more of a panic. 

It hurts somehow, like David’s done something wrong, and he hates it, it’s not fair! 

He’s not the one who... 

Well. 

He _did_ swap out with his sister and basically trick some straight guy into getting married to him. That’s a pretty shitty thing to do. His only saving grace there is that he _does_ feel bad about it and he _did_ apologize, and honestly, Patrick and his father kind of have to take at least half the responsibility for this whole mess. 

Maybe a little more, if he’s feeling generous with himself. 

But it’s too late now. 

It’s done, it’s over, it’s nothing like he’d wanted it to be, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it. 

Alexis is safe, Alexis is _free,_ and his father’s debt has been cleared. 

Now he doesn’t have to worry about anything but himself. 

_‘Maybe it won’t be so bad,’_ he thinks to himself, sneaking a glance at the man sitting across from him. He’s pretty sharp in his sleek black suit, chestnut colored hair just starting to curl at the edges, and David thinks he’d be cute even once he takes the suit off. 

He realizes that’s a pretty dangerous line of thinking as his eyes slide over the line of Patrick’s shoulders, linger on the breadth of his chest. He immediately tries to wrangle his thoughts, pictures Patrick in what he assumes is his day-to-day uniform; something that says business major. A button-down, maybe. Straight-legged, mid-range denim. 

That gets the kind of shudder David is looking for, but unfortunately Patrick notices. 

His blush is quite lovely against his pale skin, but David’s not thinking about that sort of thing anymore. 

He’s thinking about bargain-bin jeans and – _ugh –_ argyle dress socks. 

Some of that must show on his face because Patrick’s expression – and his shoulders – drop. Sighing heavily, he slides forward on his seat and reaches to open the limo’s sidebar, pulling out two crystal glasses and... chilled champagne? 

Well, at least David is _certain_ of where he stands with his father-in-law. 

He’s sure he’ll be figuring _that_ _one_ out soon. 

“I feel like we got off to a bad start,” Patrick says quietly, placing the glasses in the limo’s shallow cupholders and squeezing the champagne bottle between his knees. 

_Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it..._

“I feel like it couldn’t have gone better,” David replies, trying for a scoff and coming out rather strangled instead. 

Patrick pauses his work on the foil around the neck of the champagne bottle and flicks him a startled looked. He bites his lip, blushes before going back to his work, and no, he _is_ rather pretty, what with the way the apples of his cheeks go pink, contrasting sharply with his pale skin. He gets the cork out with a neat pop and scrambles to pour the over-flow into the glasses, filling them up right to the brim before passing one over. 

Their fingers brush and David doesn’t let it affect him. 

“We have a lot to talk about,” Patrick says, finding David’s gaze and holding it steady. “That I’d... _like_ to talk about. But right now we have to go to this reception and make nice with all my father’s friends.” 

“Who think you’ve just married the love of your life?” he asks coolly, arching an eyebrow. 

Patrick swallows hard but doesn’t drop his gaze, studying him before he eventually nods. 

“Yes, I suppose so.” 

“Is _this_ going to be a problem then?” he asks, gesturing between them so hard that the champagne in his class threatens to slop over the side. 

The Brewers may not be the _Italian_ mafia, but family is still important to them, marriage a sanctity, and he has no idea how they’re going to take to two men having been married. Hell, he doesn’t know how his _husband_ feels about it, but David suspects from what little he’d heard that it wasn’t exactly a welcome change in plans. 

“I don’t know,” Patrick admits, frowning. “But I’d prefer to find out sooner rather than later.” 

“Well...” he sighs, his heart sinking again, “If my mother ever taught me one thing it was how to be a good actor.” 

Out the corner of his eye he seems to see Patrick blanche, but it must be his anxiety. The man can’t get much paler than he already is. 

“Sure David,” he murmurs, then, a little more strongly. “Let’s just get through this party huh? Our flight leaves at midnight, so we...” 

“Wait, _flight?”_ David practically shrieks, cutting him off. “Flight _where?”_

“B... Back to Toronto David,” Patrick stammers, his expression almost... frightened. “I thought... I thought you understood...” 

David’s going to be sick. 

They’re in New York, you see, the city that David loves. He and his family have been here for months, only just barely clinging on to some façade of normalcy as they were raided by the IRS, pulled in to make statements against Eli, had their possessions sold or auctioned off one by one in an attempt to keep even a mockery of their old life in their hands. He _knew_ the Brewers were a Canadian family, but they have ties to this place, to Boston and Philadelphia, and why are they _here_ if... 

But of course they’re going back. 

Their home is in Toronto, everyone knows that, and David, well, David doesn’t _have_ a home anymore, so what does it really matter to him in the end? 

“Well,” he says, tossing back a hard, burning glug of his champagne, “Fuck.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Getting out of the limousine when it pulls up to Midtown Loft proves less challenging than he’s anticipated – after the brief ride from the church Patrick is feeling more wrong-footed than he’s ever felt in his life. He’s surprised he doesn’t actually stumble, and thank god he doesn’t, because there’s about a hundred people crowded around waiting for them and he doesn’t want to think about how David would feel if his new husband face-planted on the way into their wedding reception. 

Once he’s sure he’s got his feet steady under him, he turns and offers David his hand, clocking the surprise that flickers across his face for all of two seconds as he takes it. Patrick’s heart trips in his chest – David's fingers large and warm and soft in his – and then it’s off and racing as he too emerges from the limo, more and more and more of him, so tall and sleek and dark and yes, the more time that Patrick spends with his new husband the more he’s questioning if this all wasn’t really as obvious as it’s feeling now. 

David’s got a bashful sort of smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, his head ducked slightly as the crowd starts cheering and waving, and he slips his hand up to Patrick’s elbow in a clear bid for him to lead them inside. It’s a stark difference from the cold, cut-off man who’d accepted a glass of champagne from him only moments ago, who’d escaped to the car after a heart-wrenching revelation and had refused to speak to him after learning that they were leaving the country in less than eight hours, and Patrick gets the distinct impression that he’s affecting this presentation, putting on a face. He’s also fairly certain that he himself has said some things, done some things today that have caused some measure of hurt, and while he isn’t sure what those things are or why they were painful, he feels like a little bit of a heel. 

Even if it hasn’t been entirely his fault, he finds himself wanting to... protect David. 

To comfort him. 

But he supposes they do have a bit of a show to put on first. 

Plastering a smile across his face, he tucks David in close to his side and ducks his head, leading them down the white silk carpet laid out and doing his best to avoid the rice being tossed by friends and business partners. Sure enough, once they’re safely inside and into the back hallway, David is scowling and shaking out his hair, and Patrick very nearly reaches out to help. He’s intrigued by what the dark, silky strands would feel like slipping through his fingers, but he doesn’t think the touch would be welcome and that thought hits like a punch to the gut. 

David seems to have that effect on him. 

“Come on,” he murmurs, “They’ll be waiting for us.” 

“And they can wait a few more minutes,” David snaps, moving away to peer into the mirror hanging on the wall. “I wasn’t expecting to be assaulted with inedible foodstuffs!” 

Patrick laughs and hides a smile when David glares at him in the mirror. 

“OK David,” he murmurs, “But would you rather have been pelted with _cooked_ rice? Or some _other_ more edible foodstuff?” 

“I’d rather have them toss...” 

David cuts himself off with a choked sort of sound and abruptly shakes his head, clears his throat. 

“I’m ready,” he says, smoothing a few hairs back into perfect place, clearly unwilling to speak further. 

Patrick is reminded of the quiet sob he’d offered up when he’d admitted that he’d always dreamed of a white wedding, and feels like he’s stolen something. 

There’s nothing he can do now except offer David his hand. 

He hesitates to take it, but he does eventually, and by the time they get to the doors that will let them into the back of the reception hall, he’s locked everything away again, visibly shutting down as he calls up whatever face he needs to to pretend that he wants to be at Patrick’s side, that he chose it. It’s a bit like a splinter under Patrick’s skin but he can’t be mad because he’s doing the same thing, sticking on a smile as he pushes the doors open and leads David in to more cheers and fanfare. The room filled to bursting with hundreds of people that he doesn’t even really know, his father’s friends and business associates and a few extended family members – aunts, uncles, and cousins who’ve not been warned about the change-up because they’re all well-versed in the family business and the expectations that follow. 

Patrick’s heart aches for a moment and he’s nearly overcome with a sudden sense of loss; the loss of his best friend who probably hates him now, the loss of his other friends who he’s essentially lost in the divorce that never was and who will probably never speak to him again in solidarity with Rachel. There’s no one here that knew them really – he doesn’t even think he or his parents could be counted among that elusive group – and despite the fact that the room is still all done out in Rachel’s colors, Rachel’s flowers, Rachel’s hopes and plans and dreams, he feels alone and separate and lost. 

Patrick pulls out David’s chair at the head of the long, narrow table placed along the back of the room, hands him down into it and tries to be at least a little bit the gentlemen. He watches him covertly as he takes his own seat, watches him observe the room, the people, the decorations and hopes beyond hope that they’re acceptable. When he’d gone and turned everything on its head, his parents had cautiously asked if they needed to change venues or the way things had been planned, but Patrick couldn’t bring himself to care. Now, surrounded by the emerald green silk and white linen, his throat tightens, and he’s sure he’s the worst person in the world that he’s more concerned for David than he is for Rachel – wherever she is now. 

“It’s nice,” David says quietly over the rush and murmur of their guests finding tables and taking seats, their families filing in along the table on either side of them. "Is the green traditional?” 

For all of a second Patrick considers lying, but he can’t bring himself to do it. 

“No,” he finally manages, but just as David couldn’t earlier, he can’t bring himself to expound upon his answer. 

David’s responding look is sharp, and Patrick suspects he can read between the lines, no matter his silence. 

“The um... the blue glass is though,” he says, clearing his throat and determining to make another try, a peace offering. “Blue is... blue is considered lucky.” 

David hums quietly, reaches out to turn the stem of his glass between his fingers and opens his mouth, but the sound of a knife gently striking crystal cuts him off. On Patrick’s left, his father stands tall, as confidant as he ever is in the face of his contingency. Placing his knife back on the table, he waits for the room to settle before turning to Patrick, looking at him for a long, drawn-out moment that sticks his breath in his chest. 

“I’d like to thank you all for coming to celebrate with us today,” he says, finally turning back to the room as a whole. “I’m delighted to share these moments with you, our family and dearest friends, as my only son begins the next years of his life, the next leg of his journey. It’s always a heady thing, to see two people brought together, to see them commit to each other their trust, their loyalty, and their fidelity.” 

Patrick briefly loses the thread of his father’s speech as David stiffens beside him, no doubt catching the warning in those words. A flash of anger spikes through his chest – he doesn’t doubt that this isn’t the speech his father had prepared for him and Rachel – but it’s all his own fault and he can’t argue the logic. Still, he once again finds himself feeling like he needs to protect David, even from his own father, and so without turning, he reaches back and rests his hand gently on David’s leg, tries not to think about it and tries not to jump when David’s fingers suddenly thread through his and squeeze tight. 

“I’ve never been more proud of my son than I am in this moment,” his father says, turning back to hold Patrick’s gaze, and he believes him. 

“And to my new son-in-law,” he continues, moving his gaze back over Patrick’s shoulder, and the pressure on his hand increases. “David, you’ve proven your love and loyalty to family and we welcome you with open arms into ours.” 

Patrick lets out a silent, shaky breath, because his father had clearly seen the tension amongst the Roses, had seen the same sacrifice Patrick had that David had made for his sister. He can respect that, that devotion to family, and it at least sounds like his father is willing to give David a chance based on that devotion. 

Not, of course, that he has much choice. 

As his father raises his glass and encourages the room to follow, Patrick reaches for his own with a hand that feels weak and trembly. He puts it down to it being his left – his right still clutched desperately in David’s but he can’t bring himself to pull away. He risks a glance at his... oh god, his husband, and catches him looking back, uncertain as he lifts his own glass and nearly brings it to his lips. Patrick offers him a hesitant smile, and hopes that David’s blush looks shy instead of embarrassed to the onlookers. 

He wants to kiss him. 

The cheek, the corner of his mouth... 

Instead he lifts David’s hand and presses his lips to the back of his knuckles, earning himself a look of shock so deep he wonders... 

Well. 

“May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home,” his father intones, leading the crowd in a traditional Irish blessing. “May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam. May peace and plenty bless your world, with joy that long endures. May all life’s passing seasons bring, the best to you and yours.” 

As the heavy chant falls away and glasses are lifted, Patrick takes the opportunity to calm his racing heart with a slow, deep breath. He’s nearly certain he’s going to need a therapist after this, or at the very least a valium for the night, because he’s never been galloped through such an array of violently shifting emotions in his life. 

“Health to the men,” his father concludes, toasting the two of them as the room follows suit, “And may the women live forever.” 

A wedding bell rings, once, twice, three times, and the crowd breaks into applause as he and David sip their champagne, the bubbles tickling the back of Patrick’s throat, and he prays to the old gods he doesn’t believe in that all the Irish luck surrounding him sticks.

**XXX**

It’s a nice enough reception.

Not exactly to David’s taste, not anything like he would have planned for himself, but nice enough. 

Midtown Loft is gorgeous of course, but he would have chosen the Terrace himself, and only if he couldn’t get into the Botanical Gardens. The colors are a little too rich and intense to be pleasing, and the meal about to be served, while surely delicious, will no doubt come in tiny portions and the far-too-predictable chicken-or-fish options. 

He thinks he’s probably picking apart the venue looking for flaws because it’s the only thing keeping him from a full-blown panic attack. There are too many people here, all of them entirely unknown to David, which, to be fair, would probably be the case regardless – he doesn’t exactly have friends, and neither do his sister or his parents now that they’ve lost all their money. It’s _Brewer_ family – family in the sense of both blood and business - and they’re watching David like he’s an intruder, encroaching onto territory he has no right to. 

He doesn’t need their help – he'd gotten that impression well enough on his own. 

He doesn’t truly know how Patrick Brewer had found himself in the market for a mail-order spouse. He hadn’t asked his father why, hadn’t asked who had approached who because he hadn’t wanted to know, but he’s not entirely stupid in the ways of shady mob bosses. While it may very well have been entirely planned for the only son of Clint “Carbon” Brewer to be married off to a stranger, the way Patrick sometimes goes hesitant and halting suggests that’s not the case. 

He’d called it off with someone else – likely a woman – and David is nearly frantic to know why. 

His stomach turns, champagne bubbles doing just as much damage as his anxiety. He's surrounded by the choices of some other person, someone who had, at one point, chosen _Patrick_ where David had only chosen to save his sister, and he isn’t sure how to handle that. Yes, it’s lovely, the blue glass centerpieces in particular, but he can feel judgement heavy on his shoulders and he doesn’t think he’s ever been as uncertain of someone as he is of his new husband, as fearful as he is of his new father-in-law. 

Clint Brewer’s speech has clearly been cut and edited to fit the current circumstances. He’s good at what he does – the talking bit – so nothing stands out as a blatant lie, but the warnings had been very clear too. David may be new and unknown, it may not be a love match, but his loyalty and commitment will be both expected and demanded. 

It occurs to him for the first time that he’s gone and married a straight man and has essentially doomed himself to a life of celibacy from here on out, and he spares a brief moment of mourning for what might have been. 

Then Patrick offers David his hand and it doesn’t matter whether it’s an honest offer of support or a show for the masses – he needs it. He latches on like he’s been offered a lifeline, which really, as a metaphor, hits a little too close to home but who’s keeping track. He makes it through the warnings disguised as well-wishes, sits through the speech and the weird, chanting thing that the whole room gets in on, and that one point of contact is enough until he nearly flubs the toast part of it in his desperation for a stiff drink. 

The smile Patrick offers is gentle and shy, and David feels himself blush hotly because his new husband has a killer pair of puppydog-eyes. 

Then he’s lifting David’s hand and pressing his lips to David’s knuckles, and the softest, sweetest gesture he’s ever been the recipient of and he thinks he’s more stunned than he’s ever been in his entire life. 

The hope is fleeting, but it’s so sharp it cuts straight to his core and leaves him bleeding. 

Bells ring heavy in his ears. 

Clint Brewer finishes his speech and smartly-dressed staff begin distributing plates, serving from the left and clearing from the right. David manages a few bites of roast chicken liberally washed down with the white wine that replaces the champagne, and tries to focus on tuning out the rush and buzz of the guests filling the room. His father is seated to his right, constantly sending him worried looks from beneath his furrowed eyebrows, and his anxiety continues to simmer the longer Patrick sits in silence on his left. 

The tension between them is palpable, and he only hopes that no one else can see it. 

Still, the looks that Patrick keeps flicking him are a little less readable than his father’s. They’re shy and hesitant and at times he almost seems to catch himself looking and panic, his eyes snapping back to his plate where he’s eaten even less than David has. 

He’s almost grateful when the plates are cleared and Clint Brewer stands to address the room, but that good-will is quickly dashed. 

“If you all would care to join us on the dancefloor,” he says, “I think it’s time for my son and his husband to make their debut.”


	5. Chapter 5

Patrick stands first, and the way he smiles down at David as he offers him a hand up makes his heart pound in his chest. He berates himself for it as he’s led onto the dancefloor at the back of the room, guests crowding in around the edges – silly really, just because his new husband is pretty. It doesn’t mean anything, and he’s only setting himself up for failure by wanting – _hoping_ – for more. It’s heartbreak waiting to happen and he knows that he should really just accept that he’s entered a marriage of convenience that will only lead to lukewarm cordiality at best. If he’s really lucky one of these days they’ll trade angry handjobs after weeks of pent-up frustration and passive-aggressive pettiness, an act that will lead to a momentary existential crisis and a bunch of resentment – possibly some shouting – and then he’ll be left alone to his own devices in some cold, modern loft that’s all black-and-white and stainless steel to quietly go bitter and insane like any _respectable mistress..._

Like he said, if he’s really lucky. 

As they take their places on the center of the dance floor, David expects for Patrick to falter, to fumble and miss the first steps as he tries to decide whether he should lead or follow. Instead of a DJ or a piano, the first notes of a Celtic harp drop around him like crystal, and to his surprise and vague delight, Patrick confidently clasps his hand and his waist and pulls him into an easy waltz. 

He’s a good dancer. That probably shouldn’t be as surprising as it is – David's sure there have been enough formal events in the Brewer social circle that Patrick has been taught since a child to manage a basic box-step – but it still shocks him enough that he nearly stumbles. Scrambling to catch up, he shoots his new husband a glare when he catches him biting his lip to hide a grin, but Patrick’s eyes fucking _sparkle_ at him and he can’t stay mad. Safe now in the certainty that he can lead David through the dance without making a fool of either of them, he lets himself really look at his husband for the first time. 

It’s different this close. They’d been close at the altar of course, but now they’re in each other’s space – in each other’s _arms_ – nearly chest to chest, and he can feel the warmth of Patrick’s hand through his suit jacket, feel the rough catch of callouses on his fingertips. There are hints of russet in his curls, flecks of honey and gold in his eyes, and something bright that looks almost like playful teasing... 

Realizing that Patrick is staring back at him, David clears his throat and glances away, at the blurring faces just beyond his shoulder. 

“You dance very well.” 

Patrick’s laugh is short and unexpected, as is the bright smile that flashes across his face. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, briefly picking up the pace to hand David out into a neat spin before pulling him back in against his chest. “So do you.” 

“Two years of ballet and four of ballroom,” he recites dutifully, catching a glimpse of his mother in the crowd. 

“Now _that_ I would pay to see,” Patrick replies with a grin, and maybe it’s meant to be a joke but it’s a little like a splash in the face, ice water down his spine as he’s abruptly reminded of the nature of their current transaction. 

Patrick must be too, because he goes a little bit pale – if that’s even possible – and opens his mouth again like he means to apologize, but the song is fading away and they’re slowing to a stop in the middle of the dance floor, inches away and both of them breathing far too heavily for how slow the dance had been. Patrick’s fingers flex around his before his hand falls away from David’s waist and he turns out to face the applauding crowd, their hands still clasped tight. The smile on his face looks too tight to be sincere, but how would David know that? Pasting a grin on his own face, he offers their guests a silly little wave, and tries not to flinch when Patrick suddenly leans in close and presses a fleeting kiss to his cheek. 

Before he can do anything but stare someone is announcing the mother-son dance and Patrick is dropping his hand to open his arms to Marcy Brewer, who sweeps him up with all the love and affection that David has always seen portrayed between parents and their children on tv. For all her extensive filmography Moira Rose had never brought that effusiveness home with her, and David looks frantically for an escape, but before he finds one his mother is stepping into his own embrace and leading him into the next just as the first notes of a foxtrot begin. 

“You look lovely David; Thom Brown has always suited you wonderfully,” she says, and David suppresses a sigh even if he doesn’t manage to refrain from rolling his eyes. 

“Thank you,” he mutters, more acknowledging the fact that she and his father had scrounged to purchase the suit new for this very event – a bribe or a sacrifice he isn’t sure – than he does the compliment. 

Moira’s face is strangely serene as she directs him across the dance floor, but years of dealing with his mother’s particular brand of histrionics has him clocking the twist at the corner of her mouth, the one she wears when she has something to say but is holding back because she isn’t sure just how to deliver it with the most aplomb yet. It doesn’t help his sense of unease but she pulls him through the rest of the dance in silence, sweeping him past his new husband and his mother-in-law far more closely and far more frequently than is necessary. Finally, the music is fading away again and she lets him drag his feet to a stop, her hands running lightly down his arms to tangle their fingers together. 

“Embrace happiness my dear,” she finally says, far more simply than she typically shoots for. “You run from it far too often.” 

And then she’s gone, leaving him standing there alone wondering if she’s already dipped in to her emergency Xanax because apparently she’s already forgotten how they ended up here, that there is no love or happiness involved. 

“Hey...” 

David startles, Patrick’s hand steady yet cautious on his forearm where he’s appeared at his side. He’s wearing a strangely optimistic expression, his eyes bright, and he’s opening his mouth as if to say something a little more profound when suddenly Shauna Brewer is standing in front of him, a slow-rolling thunderstorm of a warning. 

She gives David the chills. 

“Nope, sorry, I’ve got to steal my brother for the next one,” she says, even though the next song has already started and there are guests starting to trickle out onto the dance floor. Her tone is sharp and cold but she’s glaring at Patrick not David. 

“Shauna...” Patrick says, a low warning of his own, but before David can even wave him off she’s dragging Patrick away by the wrist to the other side of the dance floor, confidant on six-inch stiletto heels that would give Alexis pause. 

The strange feeling of annoyance he’s left grappling with doesn’t make any sense at all. 

“David?” 

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath in through his nose and tries to center himself, certain that he’s about to spiral off in all directions and honestly, ready for this whole thing to be done and over with. Turning to face his sister, he manages to scrape together a smile for her as she steps tentatively into his embrace, accepting his hand and smiling just a little hesitantly herself. 

At least _she_ lets _him_ lead. 

“You ok?” he asks gently a few moments later as he twirls her gracefully across the floor. 

She’s unusually quiet and it’s been a long time since she’s had to look at her feet during a dance. 

“Ugh, don’t _ask_ me that David,” she groans, somehow managing to flick her hair at him despite both her hands being occupied. “I should be asking _you!”_

“I’m fine,” he replies, this time rolling his eyes on purpose. “Obviously it’s just a paper marriage, not like it probably would have been for you.” 

“But you don’t _know_ that!” Alexis insists, and this time David catches the real note of distress in her voice, nearly fumbling the steps. 

Does she... does she feel _guilty?_

“You know none of this is your fault, right?” he asks carefully, handing her out into a turn and pulling her back in again. “I’m not mad at you.” 

“Well of course it’s not David, duh,” she huffs, but she can’t meet his gaze. “I just... I don’t want him to hurt you.” 

Swallowing hard, David glances across the floor where his groom is gliding around with his sister, the two of them appearing to be locked in a serious, aggressive-sort of embrace. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s his sister I have to worry about actually,” he says, because that feels safer than admitting that Patrick has the power to ruin him now, in more ways than one. 

Besides, while many a man has seen his fortune fall to one of Patrick Brewer’s infamous audits, _everyone_ had heard the stories of what befell those who crossed _Shauna_ Brewer. 

If Patrick is a numbers man, his sister is a shark, appearing silently, drawn by blood, and entirely deadly in her own right. 

“I’m not afraid of Shauna Brewer,” Alexis scoffs – foolishly, David thinks – as she shoots a glare over his shoulder. 

David hides an exasperated smile in the corner of his mouth, knowing in his heart that as much as he has always protected Alexis, she does her best to protect him too, even if she’s not very good at it. 

“But your little groom is a button David!” she suddenly squeaks, sliding her hand down from his shoulder to poke him twice in the chest, going from serious and quietly emotional to excitedly enthusiastic in the way only Alexis can. 

“Regrets?” he asks with a huff, jerking his chin in Patrick’s direction. “I can see if they’ll let us switch back.” 

Alexis opens her mouth, fiery like she’s going to argue, but then she shuts it again and drops her eyes, tweaking the lapel of his suit jacket between her fingers. 

Sighing, David slows them to a mere sway, only just shifting his weight back and forth on his feet, so that Alexis can curl up against his chest and he can hide his face in the waves of her hair.

**XXX**

His heart pounds when he reaches a hand out to his new husband inviting him to dance. For a moment he thinks David is surprised, despite his father’s announcement, and it sets off another tiny red flag in Patrick’s mind that this man, this beautiful, cautious man has been hurt before. When his fingers curl around Patrick’s though, firm and steady, he thinks too that David has learned to hide it, to tamp it down with confidence and courage and flair, and he’s proud of him but he’s worried too.

He wonders if David will ever willingly share things with him, share _himself._

Leading David through the crowd, he positions them in the center of the dancefloor, keeping hold of his hand and dropping his other to David’s hip, suddenly wishing there were fewer layers between them, skirt and shirt and suit jacket all keeping him from... something. 

It’s not a sexual thought, rather a want for intimacy, but that too is just as startling for Patrick. 

He wants to be near, to be close, to know his new husband and that’s enough to make him want to impress him, to show some confidence and courage and flair of his own, so when the Celtic harp begins to play Patrick breathes out and draws him into a smooth, easy waltz. 

It’s nice. 

He’s danced with people before, has been taught how to stand up and represent himself and his family since he was a child, but he doesn’t think he’s ever danced with a man. David is... taller than Patrick, broader across the chest, and it’s an entirely new experience that he just wants to soak up and hang on to for the rest of his life. His heart races as he tries to remember the steps, anxiety burning hot and high for fear that he might embarrass himself, but it’s still one of the best moments of his life. Charged, electric, _strange,_ but one of the best. 

They’re halfway through the song when Patrick realizes that David is staring at him. 

His eyes roam quickly, up and down, linger over the breadth of his chest, and it’s so bold and unashamed that Patrick experiences a brief flash of jealousy so strong it nearly buckles his knees. He wants to be so bold, to really _look_ at his husband, and a part of him wonders if he even really wants to or if it’s just the sudden challenge that’s been thrown in his path, like someone’s pushed him into David’s arms with a shout of _‘think fast’_ and he’s just reacting to the dare of it all. 

But the way his stomach tightens and his cheeks heat when David finally catches his gaze, when he blushes and clears his throat and looks away, tells him there’s a lot more to it than that. 

“You dance very well,” he murmurs, his eyes on the crowd, and Patrick smiles, pleased he’s earned that much praise at least. 

“Thank you,” he hums, handing David out into a flashy little spin because he can before pulling him back into his arms. “So do you.” 

David rolls his eyes, looks bored as he follows Patrick across the floor. 

“Two years of ballet and four of ballroom,” he says flatly, and Patrick almost laughs at how unimpressed he sounds with himself. 

“Now _that_ I would pay to see,” he teases, because he would and he wants to make David laugh, but the stricken look that crosses his face reminds him of where they are, of how they got here, and Patrick’s breath catches in his chest. 

He opens his mouth to apologize but it sticks in his throat, his heart thumping away there like he’s swallowed a frog, and there’s nothing he can do about it because the dance has ended. He’s breathing too hard, wants to... wants to... 

He doesn’t know, but his fingers are twitching in David’s grip so he thinks grabbing on to him, pulling him closer is probably a part of the list of all those things he maybe kind-of wants. 

Swallowing hard, he drops his hand from David’s waist and turns to their guests, still hanging on tight. They have a bit of a show to put on – that's true – and very suddenly he can’t wait until it’s over so they can have a real conversation, but for now he knows how to get them through this. He’s seen David’s fear, his nervousness, especially around his father, but he can get them through this. 

But David still tries. 

He hangs on to Patrick’s hand, offers everyone an awkward little wave that’s quite possibly the most adorable thing that Patrick’s ever seen, and what else can he possibly do but lean in and press a kiss to David’s cheek. 

His look of startled shock is painful to witness, even if Patrick’s expecting it at this point, but they’re announcing the mother-son dance and his mom is already approaching him, so Patrick turns away and welcomes his mom into his arms. 

“Oh my sweet boy,” she murmurs, cupping his cheek before sliding his hand down to his chest, letting him sweep her into a simple four-step. “I’m so proud of you.” 

Patrick huffs a miserable little laugh. 

“I’m not sure you should be,” he admits, and his mother smacks at his shoulder. “No, mom, I... I haven’t exactly been a very good person...” 

“Of course you are,” she argues, and Patrick shakes his head. 

“You can’t know that,” he says softly. 

“I can,” she insists. “Patrick, you’re my son. I _know_ you.” 

“Mom, I’m not even sure I know _myself_ anymore.” 

And that... 

That’s more real and more true than he’d even realized until this moment when he says it out loud, his eyes finding David over the top of his mother’s head, being dragged around the dance floor by _Television’s Moira Rose._

His own mother sighs, frowning, before shift lifts her chin and holds his gaze. 

“I may not know why you left Rachel,” she says slowly, “But I still know you. You’re a good man Patrick, and your father and I raised you to be true to your values. You wouldn’t have hurt Rachel if there was any other way, and if you left her, you left her for a reason. Because you felt that it was the right thing to do. Am I wrong?” 

“You...” he stumbles, because _had_ he had a reason, back then? 

Yes. 

Yes, he had had a reason. 

Even if it wasn’t a clear one, he’d known something wasn’t right. 

“You’re not wrong,” he breathes, and it makes him feel... not ok, but maybe not quite as bad. 

“Of course I’m not,” his mother says with a smile, only just a little bit forced. “But I am... sorry, that it’s worked out this way with the Roses. I know this was meant to be an arranged marriage, a simple business transaction, but your father and I had hoped that one day you and Alexis might still...” 

“Mom...” 

But the song is over. 

His mother’s smile is a bit forlorn, but she squeezes his hand and puts on a brave face as she raises up on her tiptoes to smack a kiss to her cheek. Their guests are starting to make their way onto the dancefloor all around him and his father is heading in their direction, and for all of a second Patrick panics because what can he even say to either of them in this moment, but his mom is casting him a wink and walking away, heading his father off before they can reach him. 

Desperate for a moment’s peace, a moment’s escape, he looks around for David and strides toward him, only faltering when he reaches his new groom’s side. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, reaching out to touch his forearm, but as careful as he is David still jumps. 

He opens his mouth – doesn't know why it’s such a difficult thing to do in the face of David Rose – but before he can speak his sister is suddenly popping up in front of him with an expression on her face like a thundercloud. 

Apprehension rolls down Patrick’s spine like ice. 

“Nope, sorry, I’ve got to steal my brother for the next one,” she says, clearly addressing David though she’s staring at him. 

“Shauna...” he warns, but it doesn’t matter, it never does. 

Her hand circles his wrist like a vice and she drags him away to the other side of the room, pulling him along like the force of nature that she is. Once she’s found a clear bit of floor she stops, so abrupt that Patrick nearly stumbles, but she’s jerking his hands into position just in time for the music to start and pushing them into the first step with all the confidence of an Olympic award winner. It’s only fair Patrick supposes – she'd dated one for a year or two in college – but he still resents her the lead. 

He already feels off-balance with her most of the time – he doesn’t need any more of that now. 

“You know Shauna, anybody might think you’re not happy for your brother on his wedding day,” he says casually once the music picks up and their conversation won’t be overheard. 

It’s a warning and a reminder, that the glare on her face might not be well-perceived by their guests, but Shauna has never been one to change her attitude just because you tell her to. 

That’s largely the reason why Patrick’s heart nearly stops when her expression melts into a sickly smile. 

“I’m still trying to decide if I _am_ or not,” she says sweetly, and Patrick swallows hard. “What are you _doing_ Trick?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says tightly, letting her push him back into a step because otherwise she might just shove him in the chest. 

“I’m talking about the way that you up and dumped your very _female_ fiancé for no apparent reason and happily agreed to marry _David Rose_ a month later.” 

“Keep your voice down!” Patrick hisses through clenched teeth, glancing around nervously at the guests gliding past them on either side. “You never liked Rachel anyway – what are you so pissed about?” 

“I liked Rachel just fine,” Shauna argues flatly with a roll of her eyes. “I never liked Rachel _with you._ You two were a hot mess Patrick, and everyone knew it. I’m glad you finally broke it off with her. No, what I _don’t know_ if I’m happy about is the fact that you just very calmly and happily married a dude.” 

Patrick flashes hot and grits his teeth, shoves his sister out into a spin just a little too roughly. 

“Is that a problem for you Shauna?” he snarls, and it sounds like a challenge but on the inside he’s terrified. 

“Don’t be an asshole,” she spits back, and Patrick’s heart drops with relief. “It’s only a problem if _you’re_ not happy about it.” 

“I don’t even know him,” he points out, catching a glimpse of David dancing with his sister as he turns. 

“Most guys wouldn’t even get that far,” she points out. “Trick? You know you can tell me anything, right?” 

“I...” he stammers, his heart pounding. “There’s nothing to tell.” 

Shauna frowns but lets it go, and for a few seconds they dance in silence. 

“Are you ready for what comes next?” she finally asks, because if Patrick is all about numbers, his sister is all about strategy. “You’ll be tested for this.” 

“I know that,” he sighs, because she’s right and he does know that. “But fuck it. At least we’ll know who’s got problems and who doesn’t.” 

“You don’t think Dad will support you?” 

“I think he’ll have to,” Patrick huffs bitterly. 

“Patrick, he destroyed those guys who were undercutting their black employees,” she points out. “He’s not exactly a bigot.” 

“This is different,” he says, and he sounds strangled, even to his own ears. “It’s _me,_ not... not one of his _supplicants._ I’m his only son; mom’s already said they didn’t want this for me...” 

“They want you to be _happy_ Patrick,” Shauna says sternly, pinching the side of his neck. "They wanted you to marry someone you _love."_

It’s sharp and painful and grounding, cutting through the panic, and as the music fades away and they slow to a stop, Patrick clears his throat and scrubs roughly at the tingly _gonna-cry_ sensation spreading across the bridge of his nose. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the small, silver Claddagh that had belonged to their grandmother, offers it to her. 

“You should have this,” he says, his throat aching as he forces out the words. “I didn’t... Shauna?” 

His sister looks at him, her face impassive, her gaze a knife that cuts him to the core. 

“If I...” Patrick stammers, his hand shaking as he stares at the ring sitting on his palm. “If I had chosen him for myself... would you think less of me?” 

Shauna’s quiet so long he finally has to look up at her, terrified of what he’ll see, but the expression on her face is softer than any Patrick can ever remember her wearing. 

“I think you should hang on to this,” she says, folding his fingers back over the ring and squeezing his hand, glancing to the side where David is wrapped up in his sister’s arms. “I think, if you’re really lucky, you’ll need it one day.” 

And then she’s pressing a kiss to his cheek and walking away, leaving Patrick standing there with his hopes in his hand.


	6. Chapter 6

The party goes for hours. All around him, Patrick’s family - and his father’s - dance and celebrate and take the time to catch up with each other. Any real business is tabled for the night, though networking and building a presence are always ongoing, and he watches it happen all around him in a whirlwind. 

It’s a bit like herding cats, trying to keep track of his new husband, who seems as insubstantial as smoke slipping through his fingers after that first dance. It’s fine to start; Patrick has duties and expectations to meet after all – dancing with his mother and sister, then any number of aunts, cousins, and family friends – but it still feels like blatant avoidance. As each song comes to an end, he searches the crowd for David’s striking figure, his dark, silky hair, but it seems as soon as he catches sight of him through the mob of people someone else is pulling him away, chuckling at the hopeful, yearning look on his face. 

At least, that’s what it _feels like_ is on his face. 

After dreading his own wedding for so long, it’s a familiar comfort to just want it over with already, even if it’s for very different reasons. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, a hundred times, in the same soft, wondering tone, so in awe of the man he’s only just met as he’s drawn over and over back into David’s orbit. 

He looks surprised every time – surprised that Patrick has sought him out, surprised that he even cares, and it hits like a knife in Patrick’s ribs. He wants nothing more than to take David’s face in his hands and kiss him, to explore that plush looking mouth that twists so sharply with something wry and almost sarcastic every time Patrick is pulled away again – but he’s scared of that feeling and there’s a little bit of relief in the pit of his belly that he’s stopped from following through, even as his frustration grows. 

_“Such a handsome young man.”_

_“So... stylish, Patrick.”_

_“Hitting above your weight class cuz.”_

No one mentions it. 

No one points out the enormous, purple elephant in the room, no one asks him when things changed and he started liking men. 

He feels a bit hysterical thinking about it – if anyone did ask he could only say _‘oh, a couple of hours ago,’_ but no one does. 

He dances with his cousins and his grandmother and his great-aunts, a couple of family friends and a little niece, and they all congratulate him and tell him how wonderful it is, and no one mentions Rachel, no one wonders when they’d broken up or why he was now here, at his wedding, with someone else let alone someone else who was a man. 

As it is, most of them understand business. 

If anyone _did_ question it he could likely tell them what nearly stands for the truth – that he had married David Rose as part of a business transaction – and no one would bat an eye. They would understand how things work, probably even be a bit proud of him, but he chafes under the knowledge that he’d hurt Rachel so badly, and that somehow without meaning to, he’s already hurting David. 

Well then... 

The least he can do is save his new husband from his great-aunt Mildred. 

Bent and wrinkled at the ripe old age of eighty-seven, Mildred was what could be politely called curmudgeonly, stuck in her ways and incredibly judgmental. Patrick and Shauna had learned to avoid her by the ages of six and eight, and as he crosses the dance floor in an effort to save David the experience of meeting her, his heart starts to pound. To his shock, just as he reaches the table Mildred is seated at, David throws his head back and laughs. 

“Oh, real estate, of course,” he says, casting Aunt Mildred a confidant smile. “What else should one bring to a marriage?” 

“All well and good young man,” Aunt Mildred says sharply, eyeing David over her gold-framed bifocals. “But _one_ should really focus on looking after their _husband,_ meeting _all_ their needs, you understand?” 

Patrick blushes, anger zipping through him at Mildred’s tone, her implications, steeped in misogyny and just a hint of homophobia. David isn’t just some stand-in for a wife, and Patrick doesn’t expect him to act as one – hell, hadn’t even expected that of Alexis. A biting retort sits on the tip of his tongue and he rushes the few final steps closer, his stomach clenching as David’s eyes go wide, but to his pleasant surprise his husband fires right back. 

“But what if he _can’t_ meet all my needs?” David replies in faux-concern, one hand finding a place over his heart. “Should I take a lover?” 

Mildred’s eyes flash and her mouth twists like she’s sucked a lemon, but David’s got a smirk tucked into the corner of his mouth as he gets smoothly to his feet. 

“Excuse me,” he says, turning toward Patrick, who is only just realizing David had been aware of him the entire time. “I think your nephew is looking for a dance with his new _husband.”_

Offering Patrick his elbow with a cocky smirk, he seems pleased when Patrick willingly plays along and takes his arm, ostensibly playing the part of the woman for his stuffy, crabby old aunt. A new song is just beginning and David easily pulls him into the steps, doesn’t even have to think about it, or – apparently – look Patrick in the face. 

His stomach aches. 

“I’m sorry about her,” he says immediately, his tone low and hushed, just enough for the space between them. “She’s not... nice. I didn’t think to warn you.” 

“It’s not your job to apologize for other people,” David says, and his voice is calm and even and unbothered. “Besides, it’s hardly the worst thing that's ever been hurled at me.” 

“It is for me.” 

The heavy second’s silence that follows is stunning, and the both of them nearly stumble at Patrick’s admission. He hadn’t realized how heavily that was sitting on his shoulders, hadn’t realized until that very moment that now the world was going to see him as something else, something different. Here in the insulated bubble of his father’s power and control he’s been afforded a slow moment’s safe transition, but that will change the moment he steps outside – a man married to another man. 

David’s face goes on a literal journey before he swallows hard, tossing his head and looking off over Patrick’s shoulder, unable to meet his gaze once more. 

“I’m sorry about that,” he says, quickly continuing before Patrick can scold him for breaking the rule he’d just set. “I knew I was forcing you into a marriage but I didn’t realize...” 

He chews his lip, adjusts his hand in Patrick’s. 

“I didn’t think that I was forcing you into a _life_ too.” 

“You didn’t force me into anything David,” Patrick says softly, something going tender and melty in his chest. “You offered your own life up for your family – I respect that. I _admire_ that. I’m not mad at you.” 

“Not yet you’re not,” he mutters sullenly, but there’s still something hurt and apologetic in his tone. “You don’t... you have no idea, what it means yet. What it’s like to be queer in this world. It’s better than it was, sure, but I can’t imagine your father’s friends are happy that you married another man, despite the skirt.” 

“I _like_ the skirt,” Patrick hears himself say impulsively, and David’s eyes snap back to his, impressive brows furrowing. “Besides, they’re my father’s friends, not mine. I don’t care what they think, and _thanks_ to my father, they know what’s good for them.” 

“Just because you don’t _hear_ it doesn’t mean you won’t _feel_ it,” David argues, and somehow Patrick knows exactly what he means. “It’s not _fair_ to you, especially since you’re not...” 

“Not what?” 

But the song has ended. 

“You’re being hailed,” David says, nodding his chin across the room, where his father is heading towards them. 

Patrick opens his mouth, suddenly desperate to know what David was going to say, to offer him some kind of reassurance or explanation, but his words had driven home too that they _are_ from different worlds. Despite sudden and uncertain feelings, Patrick has no claim to the queer experience, and doesn’t feel like he has any right to offer either of those things. 

At least, as David had said, not yet. 

“Patrick,” his father says, clasping him close in a great, thumping hug before turning to his husband and offering his hand. “David.” 

“Clint,” David replies, and there’s a confidence and a courage in his voice and in his handshake, his head held high, that sends all Patrick’s blood rushing south in an abrupt and unexpected rush. 

Though it feels out-of-character, David’s refusal to cow in any way from his father is... 

Well. 

Really, really sexy. 

Patrick hasn’t seen many men in his life meet Clint “Carbon” Brewer’s gaze with such ease in their shoulders, clasp his hand with such equally met strength and confidence, and he can see the same surprise and pride _he_ feels flicker across his _father’s_ face before it’s locked away again. 

“There are cigars waiting on the balcony for a few close friends if you’d like to join us,” his father says to them both, and a comfortable, familiar sense of responsibility settles onto Patrick’s shoulders. 

This part he knows how to do. 

His father expects David to decline - Patrick can hear it in his voice - so he’s all the more pleased when David politely accepts. He seems to specialize in subverting expectations – something he’d like to be as proficient in himself – and this time when they turn to follow his father David just drops his hand to the small of Patrick’s back, a light touch no less intimate for it. They move toward the balcony, the crowd parting for Clint Brewer like the Red Sea, men falling in behind like dogs to heel, and the cool night air is welcome against his flushed face. 

The group mills around, Patrick and David by far the youngest by at least twenty years save Shauna, who had joined the men with her shoulders thrown back, daring any of them to suggest she didn’t belong there. Politicians, businessmen, they talk and they talk, approaching one by one to offer Patrick their congratulations, and not a single one of them introduces themselves to David or asks for an introduction. It’s not surprising – David's only _just_ married in to the family after all – but Patrick can feel how it looks down to his very bones and the soft, scoffing sound David makes at the back of his throat cuts him to his core. 

Before he can do anything about the situation David slips away from his side, moving to the nearby table where his father’s favorite Cuban cigars have all been arranged on a velvet runner. Waylaid by Bradford Whitaker, one of his father’s old college chums, Patrick feels his heart stutter in his chest when Shauna shoots him a poisonous look and moves to follow. 

“Thank you, Bradford,” he hears himself say, interrupting the older man with a quick squeeze to his shoulder, “But you’ll have to excuse me; I’ve already left David alone long enough tonight.” 

“Not at all boy,” the man booms with laughter, “Best save him from that sister of yours, no?” 

Patrick offers him a tight smile, knows his sister’s reputation as a pit viper, but the other man can’t know how right he is. After his dance with Shauna earlier, he can’t imagine the kinds of things she might say to David, the interrogation she might subject him to. 

Only... 

Only by the time he gets there, David’s lips are already wrapped around a thick cigar and he’s leaning forward to light one for his sister. 

A bolt of jealousy flashes through him so hot and sharp it nearly kneecaps him, all his focus narrowing in on David’s mouth as he straightens up again, the way he takes a long, slow draw from his cigar before pursing his lips and the smoke fall out of his mouth in a billowing cloud. He must make some sort of sound – an embarrassing one if Shauna’s smirk is any judge – because David turns to him with a grin and offers him the smoke, all brash and bravado that Patrick very suddenly can’t seem to find in himself. 

“Want a hit?” he asks, and Patrick has to lick his lips before nodding, his mouth too dry to respond. 

David hands the cigar off and Patrick’s desperation must show a little in the way he immediately sucks in a hard drag of his own, because his cheeks go pink and his eyes bright before he turns away again, back to the table to select another. He’s smooth and confident and sure in his selection, in peeling back the foil and using the gold cutters to clip the end of the cigar. The wheel of the lighter rasps against the stone, sparks, and Patrick’s senses are overwhelmed by the smell and taste of tobacco, the sounds, the sight of his husband’s long, slender fingers and his _god damn mouth..._

Fuck if he even makes it through this night alive, he has some serious self-re-examination to do. 

Experiencing David do something as simple as prepare himself a cigar and smoke it down to nothing with the confidence and suavity of any old drawing-room bastard does something for him that nothing else ever has. 

The next hour passes in a kind of daze for Patrick. He listens to David and Shauna make light small talk, listens to his father discuss business at his back, and every once in a while listens to David insert himself into that conversation with a well-placed barb or observant comment. He himself can’t seem to find any words, instead standing there stunned, like a deer in headlights, and he can feel Shauna’s silent laughter and deadly curiosity in his bones. He watches his sister watch him, watches his father watch David, and knows that before this is all over something will break. 

He suspects it will be him. 

Eventually the smoke has all faded and they’re guided back inside to return to their guests. A beautiful cake is brought out and he crowds close to David’s side so that they can cut it hand-in-hand, the scent of tobacco lingering on his jacket and making Patrick want to bury his face in the curve of David’s throat. Overcome with the ridiculous response he’s having to this man, he scolds himself sharply and focuses on the task at hand, gets them through the cutting and very, very carefully feeds his new husband a bite. He wants nothing more than to tease in that moment but David’s earlier response to the rice in his hair and the glare he shoots Patrick over the fork warns him to be on his best behavior. 

Color him shocked when David feeds him a bite of his own, then – with a quick glance at the applauding crowd – leans in and kisses icing away from the corner of his mouth. 

His tongue flicks against Patrick’s lips, warm and far-too-fleeting, but he seems to wince after and the twist of his mouth is slightly less than a smile. 

“No shade on the cake,” he says quickly as Patrick feels surprise and regret flash across his own face. “I don’t like lemon.” 

“Oh,” he breathes, relief coursing through him. “Yeah, I’m not a citrus guy.” 

David’s brow furrows and Patrick finds himself wanting to spill the entire story; how he and Rachel had met in high-school and been on-and-off ever since, how he’d proposed because it felt like the logical next step and because he knew what it was expected of him, how she’d picked out the passionfruit-and-lime bavarian with coconut topping because she liked the bright, summery flavors and immediately scared him off the whole thing by talking about kids. He wants to tell him, to show him his very heart and all the complicated, new, tangled things he’s feeling because he has the solid and certain sense that David would be kind and non-judgmental, maybe even... sweet. 

But not now. 

Now there’s more cake, toasts and blessings and traditional honeyed mead, more congratulations and more well-wishes and more dancing. David sticks close this time, almost like his pride has been prickled and he’s decided not to hide away anymore, and Patrick is so impressed with the way he holds his own that he could burst. His hands linger on David’s elbow, the small of his back without his permission, and he sees worry on his mother’s face, wariness on his father’s, but for now it doesn’t matter. 

He’s got about an hour left of this – an hour left of his wedding and these people and the complete and total lack of privacy in which to actually _talk_ to his new husband – and then he can... he can finally relax. He can finally maybe actually _say_ something, even if he doesn’t know what that will be, and get on about married life. 

For the first time he’s actually looking forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So this chapter is chock-full of fun little internet things that I do not own and cannot take credit for.
> 
> 2\. If you haven't watched Dan and Noah do a cake tasting for EW please do - they're adorable. You can find the clip on Youtube (at least in the US).
> 
> 3\. For those of you who know little-to-nothing about cigar smoking, please note that Cuban cigars are pretty much entirely illegal to obtain, and that David _Knows What He's Doing(TM)_ more than the average bear.
> 
> 4\. I know, I know, for a Mob/Mafia story this has just been six chapters of wedding fluff and miscommunication angst, but we're finally getting on with it, I promise! <3


	7. Chapter 7

After several more hours, after toasts and blessings and traditional honeyed cider, after too many conversations that dance carefully around the obvious, the party finally winds down and Patrick’s father gathers his family together to get them off to the airport. David steps away at the last moment to hug his sister and Patrick feels a strange pang deep in the pit of his belly, one that turns into the sharp twist of a knife when Johnny Rose hands David a small leather duffle he's conjured from nowhere and a look of sheer betrayal flickers across his new husband’s face. He hadn’t realized that their flight back to Canada would come as a surprise, an unpleasant one at that, and he wants to apologize but he finds Alexis cutting him off before he can even take a step in David’s direction. 

“Take care of him,” she says in his ear as she crowds in against him for a theatrical hug before leaning back just as quickly, her eyes fierce when she meets his gaze. “You may have _family,_ but I have _friends.”_

“I won’t _hurt_ him,” he hears himself say, and means to follow it up with promising he wouldn’t have hurt _her_ either, but she cuts him off again. 

“You wouldn’t be the first,” she scoffs, and Patrick has never felt so small in his life as he does in that moment under her judgmental measure. “Even if you didn’t mean to.” 

He opens his mouth to reply but suddenly David is at their side, hissing her name under his breath. 

“Don’t forget what I said button,” she chirps with a smile, her tone doing little to mask the warning. 

David’s eyebrows go through some impressive gymnastics but then she’s booping Patrick on the nose and bouncing away again, following after her parents who are already leaving along with some of the others, not even bothering to look back as they quite literally abandon their son to his fate. David just sighs, growls under his breath, then turns back towards Patrick’s parents who at least are waiting for them. 

“Can I carry that for you?” Patrick asks softly, jogging a few paces to catch up. David looks surprised and he feels his cheeks go hot, rushes to explain himself. “It’s just, your jacket...” 

“It would ruin yours too,” he points out, folding the shoulder strap into his hand as they walk so that he can carry the bag by its shorter handles without causing himself undue wrinkles. “You’re not used to wearing nice things, are you?” 

“Not so much,” Patrick replies. “And when I do someone else picks them out.” 

“Yes, your father always did know how to pick a suit,” David murmurs, glancing ahead of them to where Clint Brewer is leading the way, his wife and daughter on either arm. 

“It’s usually Shauna that comes for me,” he admits, a wry grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he watches his sister’s long chestnut curls swish across her shoulders as she walks. “And not just for my clothes.” 

David makes a humming sound of consideration but nothing more, and Patrick finds himself very suddenly standing on the sidewalk in the cool night air, just a few paces from his family as they wait for the cars. He takes the opportunity to, once again, look over his new husband, to marvel at how much his life has changed in the last twelve hours and how he feels entirely new and different, while feeling exactly the same and not any different at all. He wonders what that says about him, that his gaze trails over David’s tall, lean frame with eager interest and a simmering heat that both scares and comforts him. He’d never felt that with Rachel and a part of him had feared he never would, that he was broken somehow in the most fundamental way that he couldn’t... _connect_ with another person the way he sees everyone else around him do. 

He tries to imagine that with David and for the first time thinks he _could._

Not sex, exactly – that part still scares and mystifies him in a way he’s not ready to consider – but everything else... 

He wants to _know_ him. 

He wants to hole up in a hotel and spend the next week doing nothing but _learning_ David Rose, learning if the two of them together could... 

Could what? 

Make this marriage work? 

They don’t really have a choice do they, and that’s something else they need to talk about. 

Patrick finds himself sighing heavily, and when David shoots him a nervous side-eye it seems to take all of his energy to return a reassuring smile. 

A dark town-car pulls up to the sidewalk and Patrick’s father ushers his mother and sister inside before turning back to them. He’s not sure what he expects but it’s not the frown his father offers. He cocks an eyebrow, a subtle question, but he and his father have spent hours learning each other’s micro-expressions and this is Clint Brewer worried, as unsure as he ever is. There’s regret in that look, something his father almost never feels, and it puts a bolt of worry through Patrick’s nervous system. 

Sighing, Clint Brewer looks the both of them over before shaking his head, getting into the car, and shutting the door behind himself. 

“Fuck.” 

Patrick blinks, the jarring sensation of David having muttered the very sentiment he himself had felt a strange double-echo. He wants to reassure him, to spout some excuse, but honestly he doesn’t know what to say. 

A second town-car pulls up and the driver jumps out to take David’s bag, holding the door for them both to climb inside. David goes first at Patrick’s insistence and he finds himself putting a sharp check on his instinctive gesture – his father had always taught him that as a man it was his job to protect his women, whether that be his mother, his sister, or his wife. Seeing them safely into the car first was an act of conscientious security, not just chivalry, but David is not a woman, not his wife. 

He doesn’t think it matters. 

David is his _partner,_ new to this world and this life, and perhaps _Patrick_ has something to teach _him,_ not only the other way round. Perhaps _he_ has something to apologize for, for bringing David into something he never would have otherwise experienced. 

He thinks David may be less grateful than Patrick is sure he himself will one day feel. 

He ponders this all the way to the airport, David absorbed with scrolling almost frantically through his phone and very obviously not interested in starting small talk. Patrick finds himself at a loss with it as well, and since it’s only a twenty-minute ride to the small, private airstrip, it seems foolish to start a serious conversation at all, let alone when he isn’t sure which way it should go. He’d like to say the ride gave him time to come up with the words he can’t seem to get a grasp on, but based on the fact that they get all the way onto the little private plane and through the flight to their destination before he speaks to David again he thinks it would be a lie. 

“David,” he murmurs, laying his hand on David’s elbow where he’s fallen asleep, slumped against the window instead of Patrick’s shoulder. “David. Come on, we’re here.” 

David jerks and makes a snuffly sound that is absolutely adorable, and Patrick can’t help the soft expression that comes over his face in response. David catches him at it and scowls, scrubbing his hand over his face. 

“Ugh, go away with all _that,”_ he grumbles, circling his hand in front of Patrick’s face. “This is _not_ a good look. I can never stay awake on planes.” 

“Yeah, I figured that out around the time the snoring started,” Patrick deadpans, but he can’t hold his laughter when David yelps in indignation. 

“Excuse you, I do not _snore!”_ he growls, getting to his feet and snapping his jacket down over his butt. “If I’d known we were flying I would have brought an upper. And another outfit. Flying in a suit is incorrect.” 

“You can afford the dry cleaning again now David,” Patrick says carefully as they make their way down the wide aisle to the front of the plane, not wanting to step on any nerves. “Your suit will be fine.” 

_“You_ can afford the dry cleaning,” David snaps back, taking his duffle from the stewardess with a nod of thanks, even though Patrick’s father has people to handle the bags. “I know what I’m bringing to this marriage. Or... at least what I’m _not_ bringing.” 

Patrick opens his mouth to argue, to tell him that he’s _already_ brought something, something that Patrick didn’t know he needed or wanted or could ever have, a _revelation..._

But that seems too much. 

Too big and too real and too dramatic, especially given that he isn’t even sure that he... 

Well, like he said. 

He doesn’t know. 

He and David follow Shauna and his parents down the steps of the plane to the next waiting car, this time only one, but it’s a long limousine with more than enough space for them all. His father is absorbed with a tablet that’s been handed to him, his mother trying to be subtle about the way she’s looking at the careful twelve inches David’s left on the seat between them, and his sister seems to be locked in some sort of staring contest with his new husband who, to Patrick’s delight, somehow appears to be winning. 

The silence between them hangs heavy around his neck. 

Eventually the car makes its way out of the city and up into the hills to the family compound, the wide gates gliding open silently to allow them through. David’s face and fingerprints will all have to be added to the roster of those expected to be coming and going, his identity confirmed with security, and Patrick tries to focus on the logistics of it all instead of the more emotional aspect of introducing him to staff as his spouse – staff who had known Rachel since she and Patrick were children. It’s a problem for another day, and when the car slows to a stop in front of the family home, he takes the opportunity to make a break from the thick, oppressive quiet closed inside. 

Stepping out into the cool night air, he pulls a deep breath into his lungs and glances up at the stars, wonders briefly if he was always meant to end up here. It’s silly – he’s never believed in fate, not since his father had counseled him at the tender age of eleven to make his own – but it’s comforting too somehow. It gives him the courage to turn back to the car and help David out, to hold his hand for just a beat too long once he’s got his feet underneath him. 

“So where are we?” he asks, staring up at the sprawling expanse of the Brewer home. “Summer house? The business front?” 

“It’s just home David,” Patrick says with a heavy heart, because while he’s sure David misses the opulence of his old life that allowed the Roses to have multiple real estate holdings across the globe, he doesn’t think he’s ever had a _home._

_“Hmm.”_

Patrick smiles wryly, this time making sure he got to David’s duffle first, slinging it over his shoulder without thought for the wrinkles it might cause. David’s eyes trail over his shoulder where the strap cuts into his jacket, and then almost seem to linger for a moment, tracing the breadth of his chest. Heat flares up from the pit of Patrick’s stomach and his breath catches, but then his father is ushering them all up the walk toward the doors and he doesn’t have to time wonder if he _does_ or _doesn’t_ hope it means what he thinks it means. 

“Oh!” his mom startles, making both him and David jump. “I almost forgot!” 

Rushing the last few steps ahead of them, she ducks through the doors being held open by waitstaff and emerges again with a tiny cupcake in her hands. Patrick’s heart stutters as he remembers David’s reaction to the rice in his hair and he groans. 

“Mom,” he hesitates, shooting David a glance, who’s brow is furrowed in confusion. 

“It’s tradition, Patrick,” his mother scolds. “Let me have this!” 

And well... 

That cuts. 

Patrick blinks, stunned, knowing she didn’t mean it that way but also knowing she wouldn’t be wrong if she had and... 

“It’s fine,” David murmurs, his hand warm on Patrick’s elbow. “I mean, I thought it was tradition for _you_ to smash cake in my face, but who am I to say no to more cake?” 

“David...” he warns, but David is already stepping forward and before he can stop what’s about to happen, his mother is reaching up from her position on the threshold and breaks the piece of cake over the top of David’s head. 

“Oh, I...” 

“For good luck dear,” his mother explains, lowering her arms as David’s eyes try to roll back far enough to see the top of his own head, his expression all poorly contained shock and mild panic. “And for getting along with the in-laws.” 

David’s head snaps forward again, his mouth falling open and his entire expression softening, and for just a second Patrick thinks he sees his eyes gleam. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly a moment later, likely only meant for Patrick’s mother to hear. 

Smiling softly, she reaches up and touches David’s cheek before handing him his half of the cake. It’s hardly a bite’s worth, and the same flavor as the original wedding cake that David had grimaced over, but he still pops it into his mouth and sucks icing from the edge of his thumb as he steps back to let the rest of the family crowd through the doors. Patrick knows he’s staring because Shauna takes the opportunity to shoulder-check him hard, knocking him off balance, and the look she shoots him is worried and annoyed and sympathetic and suspicious all at once, in the way only a sister’s can be. 

The next twenty minutes is a flurry of chaos as everyone bustles around in the foyer; jackets being taken, bags and clutches being relieved, pressing matters that can’t be left till morning being passed. His mother fights her way to his side and takes his face between her hands, stares at him for a long moment before pulling him down and pressing a kiss to his forehead. He wants desperately in that moment to tell her that it’s all going to be alright, that he thinks maybe this really _can_ work, but his throat closes up on him. He’s too late anyway – she's turned to the task of shooing everyone, even his father, off in the direction of sleep. A late brunch is promised since it’s already two am, and nothing sounds better than a late-morning lie-in, so Patrick thinks he can be forgiven for not realizing what’s coming until it’s too late. 

Heading upstairs with his sister in front of him and his husband behind, he pauses where the hallways branch off and accepts Shauna’s sudden, fierce hug with as much grace as he can muster, given his surprise. She doesn’t tend to show physical affection often, but the way she squeezes him to the point of pain is fitting and familiar. Her hand on the back of his head, she presses a hard kiss to his cheek, tightening her fingers in the short hair at the nape of his neck. 

“Don’t do anything _stupid_ Trick,” she hisses in his ear, and Patrick nearly laughs with the relief of it all, that that’s exactly what she would have said to him in any case and yet still the perfect sentiment for how everything had gone. 

Pulling back, she shoots David a slow, tense once-over before waltzing off down the hallway toward her rooms. 

“Your sister is fucking terrifying.” 

This time Patrick does laugh, a short, sharp bark as he turns to David with a grin. 

“Yes,” he agrees, because it’s true no matter what anyone says. “But don’t let her hear you say it.” 

“Only an idiot wouldn’t be scared of her,” David mutters as he follows Patrick down the opposite hallway. 

“You’re not wrong,” he agrees. “But she won’t respect you more for showing it.” 

He means to make a joke, to tell David about the time when he was fourteen and Shauna was twelve, and he’d accidentally broken one of her Cheer trophies and had made the grave mistake of groveling, but he’s pushing open his bedroom door only to be struck by the most obvious dilemma he’s ever stupidly overlooked. 

_There’s only one bed._

“Um, I can... go stay in one of the guest rooms,” he says awkwardly, even as he moves out of the doorway to allow David in behind him. “I didn’t think...” 

“I’m sure your father would _love_ that,” David snarks, taking his duffle from Patrick’s shoulder and moving to place it on the bench at the end of the bed, the sound of the zipper sharp and harsh. “Great way to start a marriage, sleeping in separate rooms.” 

Patrick sees the exact moment that David realizes how he sounds, sees the way his entire body stiffens. 

“I mean, um, if you don’t want...” 

“It’s a California King,” Patrick says slowly, watching David carefully keep his back to him. “We could share? If that’s ok with you?” 

“It’s fine,” David says flippantly, tossing his head back and standing back up with a bundle of clothing and a leather toiletry bag in his hands. “Is that the bathroom?” 

But he’s disappearing through the door before Patrick can reply. 

He’s left to pace for the next forty minutes while David does... whatever he’s doing in there. He hears the shower running but only for about ten minutes, and wonders what else could be taking so long. He hopes it’s not panic, or David feeling too uncomfortable to come back out, but he eventually does wearing a pair of black drop-crotch joggers and looking slightly more relaxed than when he’d gone in, his face glowing and his hair falling in soft, damp curls over his forehead. Patrick finds himself nearly overwhelmed with the urge to reach out and run his fingers through them, but the word **don’t** is printed in bold, black letters across the chest of David’s pristine white t-shirt and that’s a clear enough message for even him to read. 

Collecting his own pajamas Patrick slips into the bathroom and breathes in the warm, steamy air, the faintest scent of bergamot. There’s a neat line of skincare products marching across the back of his sink vanity and David’s suit hangs on the rack across from the shower, and it hits somewhere deep in his chest that this might be what home is now. 

Patrick’s own shower is quick and perfunctory, just enough to scrub off the anxiety sweats and the stale feeling that flying always leaves on his skin. His cock perks up under the warm water which is infrequent enough to be surprising and disconcerting in equal turns, and he cranks the water to ice cold for a good five minutes before getting out again. Towel wrapped firmly around his waist, he studiously avoids his own expression as he brushes his teeth and refuses to allow himself a second’s pause in leaving the bathroom when he’s finished. 

David is already curled up beneath the comforter when he emerges, just a tuft of fluffy black hair sticking out atop the pillow. He’s turned the lights down save for the lamp on Patrick’s bedside table, and while he isn’t clinging to the edge of the mattress there’s certainly more than enough space left between them. Patrick’s footsteps hesitate on his way to the bedside, and he’s struck by the memory of a teenage sleepover when he was twelve or thirteen, and the queasy feeling in his stomach that he’d thought was too much cake and too many slices of pizza when he’d had to climb into bed with his best friend Jason Kitchner. 

Swallowing hard, he slips beneath the covers and turns out the light, thankful for the blessed dark. 

“Goodnight David,” he murmurs, quietly enough not to wake him if he’s lucky enough to have already drifted off. 

The moment’s silence that follows is long enough he thinks he has. 

“Goodnight Patrick.” 

“Can we talk tomorrow?” he hears himself ask, and the cracked hope in his voice is horrifically embarrassing. 

“We’ll talk any time you’d like,” David replies. “Obviously. Only preferably not before ten am – I'm not really a morning person.” 

And well... 

It’s _not_ obvious, not to Patrick, and he worries that it seems to be to David, but he can’t think of anything else to say and before he knows it exhaustion is dragging him down.


	8. Chapter 8

David wakes up warm and snuggly and comfortable, in that foggy, hazy-sort of half-sleep that he so loved to linger in before his life had fallen apart. The uncomfortable beds and sharp decline in luxury of the last few years had put a damper on such hedonism, but in the pale light of morning just barely breaking through the gap in the curtains that pain is all a distant memory. He’s on a perfectly soft mattress, sheets silky underneath him, the duvet soft and smelling ever-so-slightly of linen-and-lilac where it’s pulled up to his nose. There’s heat all along his back – a strong body tucked in close behind him, a strong arm wrapped around his waist, gentle breathing tickling the nape of his neck and he... 

_Holy god._

David rolls out of the bed so fast that he ends up on the floor with a hard thump, abruptly very grateful for the thick, fluffy rug between him and the hardwood that he’d silently scoffed at the night before. It _hurts,_ and it’s _humiliating,_ and yet somehow it’s better than the alternative, better than Patrick waking up and... 

“ ‘S wrong?” a voice mumbles sleepily above him, blanket rustling as someone slowly turns over. “ ‘S too early...” 

David closes his eyes and wonders what horrible thing he’d done in a past life, tries not to think about how warm and soft his... oh god, his _husband_ sounds. They’d gone to sleep on opposite sides of the bed as far apart as they could possibly be – David had never expected to wake up cuddled in Patrick’s arms. Those few seconds of awareness (but not too much awareness) had been nicer than David can remember feeling in ages and he... 

He should have built a pillow wall between them before drifting off. 

At least it hadn’t happened the other way around. 

He’s a notorious octopus in bed, a shameless big spoon whose subconscious apparently loves to cuddle according to multiple, unappreciative partners, and it’s been a minute since he’s had anyone to do that with. 

That or any _other things,_ his body reminds him. 

At least he hadn’t been _shoved_ out of the bed for molesting his new husband with his morning wood. 

Which, thanks to the fall, he no longer has... 

_Ow..._

Pushing himself upright carefully, he takes a minute to hunch over his knees and assess the damage, but luckily he doesn’t think anything’s broken. 

God, can you imagine how _that_ would look to the in-laws – heading to the hospital the morning after his arranged marriage to their son with a fractured... 

“C’mon, g’ back to sleep,” Patrick hums, startlingly close, and when David looks up he finds himself practically nose-to-nose with his husband, who’s rolled over into the warm spot David had abruptly vacated and is practically hanging over the edge of the bed. He looks painfully soft and vulnerable in sleep, a single lock of hair curling over his forehead, his lashes thick against his cheek where he’s tucked his face into the pillow, and David is struck by the sudden urge to kiss him. 

Which is... wrong, on a lot of levels, and only some of them involving consent, so instead he sits up and puts his arm on Patrick’s arm, warm and thicker and more defined than he was expecting. 

Blinking, he mentally smacks himself for automatically brushing his thumb over Patrick’s bicep and nudges, trying to urge him back to his own side. 

“Scooch over,” he murmurs, but Patrick’s face scrunches and he pulls away sharply. 

_“Quit_ Rachel!” he growls, and then his eyes snap open and he rolls off the other side of the bed so fast David isn’t sure he meant to do it or not, the color draining from his face. 

At least _he_ lands on his feet. 

“David!” he blurts, all shock and guilt, like he’s done something wrong. He’s emoting pure panic and fidgeting like a little kid, shifting his weight from foot to foot and wringing his hands together before trying to shove them into his non-existent pockets. “I... wait, why are you on the floor?” 

David scowls at him before getting to his feet, brushing off the knees of his joggers. 

“What time is it?” he asks by way of answer, and Patrick stares for a second before shaking his head to clear it of whatever sleep he’s still hanging onto. 

“Um, it’s just half-nine,” he says after checking his phone on the bedside table and David groans. 

“No, it’s fine, that’s fine,” he says to himself, getting to his feet and scrubbing his hands over his face. “You seeing me for the first time after less than eight hours sleep is fine.” 

“I saw you last night.” 

David glares between the gap in his fingers before turning away to the chaise lounger tucked against the window to grab his duffel. 

“Last night doesn’t count,” he snips, and behind him he hears Patrick huff a little laugh. 

“Ok David.” 

Rolling his eyes, because at this point it’s all he can do, David stalks into the bathroom and locks the door behind him. 

Well. 

It’s not how he expected to start married life. 

Not that he thought he’d ever get married, not after about the age of twenty-two, but this is not what he’d imagined, even then. He wanted... well, snuggles, and morning sex, and maybe a shared shower followed by an extensive continental breakfast at whatever resort they’d chosen for the honeymoon... 

He should really ask about that. 

It was pretty obvious by now that the whole wedding had been arranged well before Patrick’s marriage to David, so he doesn’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that there’d been a honeymoon arranged as well. It would definitely be awkward for the two of them to share that, all things considered, but it seems an unforgiveable waste – especially if it was something nice. 

Whoever Rachel was, she’d planned a decent wedding, so David has to imagine the honeymoon plans would follow the same not-quite-perfect-but-nice-enough standards that the night before had met. 

The panic attack hits him out of nowhere, and later he’ll berate himself for not anticipating it. The bottom drops out of his stomach and he’s vision swims as he’s hit by a wave of dizziness, but he manages to grab hold of the edge of the sink and steady himself. Slapping one hand over his mouth to stifle a sob, he staggers to the shower and cranks the water on to cover the sound of his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. Sliding down the wall, he brings his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them, hugging himself as tight as possible as he clenches his eyes shut and tries to control his breathing. 

_In-two-three-four, Hold-two-three-four..._

_Out-two-three-four, Hold-two-three-four..._

It hurts, and it takes what feels like forever, but eventually he feels like he’s got a grip on his sanity again and manages to push shakily to his feet. Stupid, _stupid,_ he should have seen this coming. The fear for Alexis, the misplaced resentment toward his father, the frustration for his family’s situation – he's been bottling it up for months and it had all come to a head yesterday. He’s... he’s sold his _soul,_ given his _life_ away – and yes, he knows that sounds dramatic but that’s exactly how it feels _and_ what’s actually happened. Everyone knows the Brewers, their reputation, and at the same time not a soul knows the truth, and somehow he’s managed to find himself behind the scenes of one of the most powerful mob families in the Western hemisphere. 

David clenches his jaw hard and breathes. 

_In-two-three-four, Hold-two-three-four..._

_Out-two-three-four, Hold-two-three-four..._

Splashing some cold water on his face, he studiously avoids his reflection and brushes his teeth, turning off the shower before he starts in on his morning skin-care routine. It’s rather difficult to style his hair without meeting his own gaze but the extra concentration stops him from spiraling off in twelve directions about who Rachel is, and fuck, where she is and why she’s not here in his place right now... 

Oh god, she’s still _alive_ right?! 

A gentle tap on the door startles him out of that horrifying line of thought and he jumps, banging his knee on the cabinet under the sink. 

“David?” 

“No, I’m fine, what?!” he yelps, hissing as he grabs for his jar of eucalyptus under-eye serum before it can slip over the edge and shatter on the tile floor. 

“Um... just, are you almost done in there or do I need to go use Shauna’s...” 

“Oh my god!” David breathes, because he’s pretty sure Shauna Brewer already wants to murder him. “No, I’m good, just...” 

Grabbing up his duffel because he hasn’t changed yet (and it has nothing to do with his not wanting to contemplate his very meager options for his first brunch-with-the-inlaws), he hurries out of the bathroom and practically bounces of Patrick’s chest, who’s waiting awkwardly a few steps away from the door. He automatically reaches out to steady David by his elbows, and he feels caught more than anything when Patrick’s eyes seem to try to bore into his own, hopefully not but definitely-probably reading his panic attack all over his face. 

“Are you...” 

“Yup, fine!” he warbles, for what feels like the fiftieth time that morning as he pulls away. “How formal is this brunch thing?” 

“It’s... not, just family,” Patrick says slowly. “Are you sure you...” 

“Uh-huh,” David interrupts, turning away. 

Dropping his duffel onto the end of the bed, which has been made up with sharp, creased corners, he pulls out a sweater that’s been folded with only a modicum of correctness and intentionally grabs the back of his shirt collar, hauling it up over his head. 

It’s probably wrong, probably cruel to use Scare-the-Straight-Boy as a way to make his own escape, but he feels nothing but relief when he hears the bathroom door thump shut behind him. He managed to let go of the breath he’d been holding as he drops his t-shirt to the bed, pulling on the loose, grey sweater with the skull-and-baseball print that Alexis had no-doubt packed. She was the only one of the three other Roses who would know which of his knits could survive being folded into a duffel bag, and he’d appreciate it if a strip of banana-flavored condoms didn’t flutter loose when he shook it out. 

_Incorrect._

Diving after them, he swipes them up and stuffs them into the bottom of the bag before anyone can see them – Patrick or anyone else. 

Remembering the fact that either of his in-laws, or god-forbid _Shauna_ Brewer could come barging in at any time, David quickly scrambles into his clothes, eyeing the bathroom door suspiciously before dropping his joggers and clambering into his briefs with a speed that threatens to topple him over. He manages it with only one embarrassing twirl to keep his balance, and hurries into the black skinny jeans Alexis had also packed. They weren’t what he’d normally pair with Givenchy, but he supposes he should just be grateful that she remembered to include socks. She wears enough sandals and strappy heels he’d been worried. 

Fully dressed, all that’s left to worry about is what he’ll wear tomorrow, because the duffel is definitely empty. 

Yeah right – that's _all_ there is to worry about. 

He tries not to jump when the bathroom door creaks open slowly behind him, glancing over his shoulder to find Patrick peering hesitantly out around it. He blushes when he sees David looking but clears his throat and steps sheepishly back into the room, jerking his thumb toward the second set of doors. 

“Forgot my clothes,” he mumbles, and David doesn’t respond other than to watch him shuffle across the hardwood with his head hung. 

“You’ll have to give me a tour of your walk-in,” he calls, as Patrick disappears inside, pretending that he’s not half as excited as he really is about the prospect of more closet space. “Let me know what I’m working with.” 

“Oh, I... yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Patrick says slowly, a low mumble from the depths of the closet. 

David frowns. 

“What?” he asks when Patrick re-emerges, juggling a stack of fabric awkwardly in his hands. 

“No, I just...” he says, his cheeks flaring a dark, painful red. “It’s my parents’ house. I hadn’t thought if we would... stay.” 

And oh. 

Yeah. 

That... makes sense. 

David kicks himself when Patrick offers him a quirk of his lips - not a smile, not a frown - and disappears back into the bathroom. Sinking down onto the end of the bed, he sandwiches his hands between his knees and tries to keep breathing. 

Of course Patrick is an adult and doesn’t want to live with his parents forever. 

Of course he’d been planning to find a place with Rachel – whoever she was, wherever she was. 

Now he has David, and that throws a wrench into all his plans, whether they stay or go. 

It’s fine, it _is,_ he’s used to being a wrench in people’s plans, and honestly it had been his idea this time, but he still... he just doesn’t know what to do with that now. 

Oh god, he’d done such a good job yesterday of holding it all together and now... 

Patrick’s phone pings on the bedside table and David jumps. He’s a little stunned to find that he really couldn’t care less about who it is or what they want, but it’s a reminder that his own phone had been sickeningly silent, and when he grabs it from his own nightstand he makes sure that he doesn’t look at the screen before slipping it into his pocket. 

“You’ve got a text,” he says, a little too loudly around the lump in his throat when he hears the bathroom open. “Are we late?” 

“No,” Patrick replies, coming up on the other side of the bed to grab his own cellphone. “Probably just mom letting us know we’re headed that way.” 

David swallows hard, closes his eyes, pretending they don’t sting with the casual way Patrick says _mom._

Not _my_ mom, just _mom,_ and he knows he doesn’t mean it that way, but Marcy had taken the time yesterday to complete a family tradition to welcome him into the family, to offer him luck and the hope that they’ll get along, and he doesn’t want to think about how much that had meant to him. 

God, he needs coffee to deal with this. 

Turning around to make his demands, he tries not to swallow his tongue when he finds Patrick sliding his phone into the pocket of some ridiculously tight blue jeans. He’s paired them with a soft, light-blue V-neck sweater and David wants to run his hand down the sleeve, but he remembers the way Patrick’s muscles had felt under his hand – both last night and this morning – and he determinedly shoves his hands into his own pockets. 

“We should go then,” he manages, and Patrick shoots him an unreadable look, opening his mouth twice before finally shutting it again and nodding. 

“Ok David,” he says carefully. “Let’s go.”


End file.
